Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Philippians 3:17
Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an example.
17 21. Application of the thought of progress: warning against antinomian distortion of the truth of grace: the coming glory of the body, a motive to holy purity
17. Brethren ] A renewed earnest address, introducing a special message. See above, Php 3:13.
be followers together of me ] More lit., become my united imitators. For his appeals to his disciples to copy his example, see Php 4:9; 1Co 4:16 (a passage closely kindred in reference to this), 1Co 10:33 to 1Co 11:1; and cp. 1Th 2:7; 1Th 2:9; 2Th 3:7-9; and Act 20:18-21; Act 20:30-35. Such appeals imply not egotism or self-confidence, but absolute confidence in his message and its principles, and the consciousness that his life, by the grace of God, was moulded on those principles. In the present case, he begs them to “join in imitating” him, in his renunciation of self-confidence and spiritual pride, with their terrible risks.
mark ] Watch, for imitation. The verb usually means the watching of caution and avoidance (Rom 16:17), but context here decides the other way. The Philippians knew Paul’s principles, but to see them they must look at the faithful disciples of the Pauline Gospel among themselves; such as Epaphroditus, on his return, the “true yokefellow” (Php 4:3), Clement, and others.
walk ] The common verb, not that noticed just above. It is a very favourite word with St Paul for life in its action and intercourse. See e.g. Rom 13:13; Rom 14:15; 2Co 4:2; Eph 2:10; Eph 4:1; Col 1:10; Col 4:5; 1Th 4:1; 1Th 4:12; 2Th 3:6. Cp. 1Jn 1:7; 1Jn 2:6 ; 2Jn 1:4; Rev 21:24.
“ Walk so as &c.”: more lit., with R.V., so walk even as &c.
us ] “Shrinking from the egotism of dwelling on his own personal experience, St Paul passes at once from the singular to the plural” (Lightfoot). Timothy and his other best known fellow-workers, Silas certainly (Acts 16), if still alive, would be included.
ensample ] An “Old French” and “Middle English” derivative of the Latin exemplum (Skeat, Etym. Dict.). The word occurs in A.V. elsewhere, 1Co 10:11; 1Th 1:7 ; 2Th 3:9; 1Pe 5:3 ; 2Pe 2:6; and in the Prayer Book (Collect for 2nd Sunday after Easter).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Brethren, be followers together of me – That is, live as I do. A minister of the gospel, a parent, or a Christian of any age or condition, ought so to live that he can refer to his own example, and exhort others to imitate the course of life which he had led. Paul could do this without ostentation or impropriety. They knew that he lived so as to be a proper example for others; and he knew that they would feel that his life had been such that there would be no impropriety in his referring to it in this manner. But, alas, how few are there who can safely imitate Paul in this!
And mark them which walk so, as ye have us for an ensample – There were those in the church who endeavored to live as he had done, renouncing all confidence in the flesh, and aiming to win the prize. There were others, it would seem, who were actuated by different views; see Phi 3:18. There are usually two kinds of professing Christians in every church – those who imitate the Saviour, and those who are worldly and vain. The exhortation here is, to mark – that is, to observe with a view to imitate – those who lived as the apostles did. We should set before our minds the best examples, and endeavor to imitate the most holy people. A worldly and fashionable professor of religion is a very bad example to follow; and especially young Christians should set before their minds for imitation, and associate with, the purest and most spiritual members of the church. Our religion takes its form and complexion much from those with whom we associate; and he will usually be the most holy man who associates with the most holy companions.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Php 3:17
Brethren, be followers together of me
Incentives to a Christian walk
I.
Copy great examples.
II. Beware of false professors.
1. They mind earthly things.
2. Are enemies of Christ.
3. Their end is destruction.
III. Look to the end.
1. Your home is in heaven.
2. Christ comes to fetch you.
3. Will fashion you for it. (J. Lyth, D. D.)
Christian example
Together with the rules of religion we must propound Gods graces in us as examples for others to imitate.
I. Imitation implies four things.
1. A doing that which another doth.
2. A doing it in the same manner.
3. A doing thereof grounded on the same affections, not as in a play where the king is often a varlet; but as a child who endeavours to imitate the father in mind as well as body.
4. A doing with an earnest desire to be like Him: so we should desire to be like Christ, and only like others as they are like Him.
II. Hence we may gather the ground why we have not only rules in scripture but examples.
1. They show that the things commanded are possible.
2. They show us the way and the means more plainly.
3. They show how graceful and acceptable they are when done. So the Scripture allures to obedience.
III. Uses.
1. We ought to follow others, and especially those who are above others. Then–
(1) Reverence not only the eye of God, but of weak Christians. We are to be careful not to give them a bad example.
(2) Deny yourselves in liberties, especially when we are in the presence of such as wilt take scandal.
(3) Demean yourselves so as to respect those with whom you converse. Grace will teach us to honour the meanest.
2. If we are bound to give good example then woe to the world for offences. What shall become of those who wound and vex continually the hearts of those with whom they converse.
3. As we must give good example so we must endeavour to take good from others example; and to this end–
(1) We must study them.
(2) Not to uncover their shame or weakness, for this is a poisonous disposition; but as we use glasses to see ourselves by.
(3) We are to observe the best and not those who are inferior to us (1Co 4:16; 2Co 10:12).
(4) We must learn truth before we practise, for the best have their blemishes.
(5) We must labour to have hearts softened and sanctified by grace, for a stony heart will receive no impression.
(6) We are to look to every one that hath any good thing worthy of imitation, as those who delight in gardens when they hear of any choice flowers, will have a slip for their own garden. When we see any choice flower of grace let us get a slip of it (Rom 1:12). (R. Sibbes, D. D.)
Example is living instruction
Embodied virtue or vice cannot but be attended with the consequences of a wide-spreading influence. In the example of St. Paul here before us we see–
I. As utter rejection of any righteousness of his own as a plea of justification.
II. A cordial acceptance of the redeemer.
III. An unremitting pursuit after that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. Conclusion: The nobility of the Christian calling.
1. The superiority of its enjoyments. (W. Higgin, M. A.)
A ministers example
Should–
I. Consist with his teaching.
II. Be formed on the apostolic modeL.
III. Be observed and imitated as far as it accords with the truth. (J. Lyth, D. D.)
The duty of imitating good examples
The apostle persuades the Philippians to agree in the imitation of his practice in forsaking all for Christ. There were differences among them. He would have them agree in one common rule, hope, example, that they might avoid those whose walking was not a pattern (verse 18). The lesson is also enforced in 1Co 4:16; 1Th 1:6; 1Th 2:14; 2Th 3:7; Heb 13:7.
I. There are several sorts of examples.
1. That of saints living in former ages and now.
(1) Those in former ages (Heb 6:12; Heb 12:1; Jam 5:10). These should be regarded by us because–
(a) They are so many and various, suited to all, and for all Christian ends. The prince in Josiah and Hezekiah; the councilor in Hushai; the rich in Abraham; the poor in the Shunamite; the courtier in the Ethiopian eunuch; the captive in Daniel; the afflicted in Job; the banished in Joseph; the soldier in Cornelius; women in Sarah (1Pe 3:6); magistrates in Moses and Nehemiah; ministers in the apostles. And then of all graces: Abraham for faith, David for devotion, Job for patience, Paul for diligence.
(b) These show that there is nothing impossible in our duty. Difficulties have been overcome in Divine strength and can still be. They were of the same nature, etc., with us (Jam 5:17).
(c) Their examples are a standing testimony to confirm by experience the truth and reality of our blessed hopes (Heb 12:1), and thus serve to confirm our faith and excite our hope and love.
(2) Those now living; for God has left us a continual succession of good examples, and these add this above all that are past.
(a) That they are in our eye.
(b) There is greater provocation in the examples of the living (2Co 9:2; Heb 10:24).
(c) These are yet in the way and can better help us as being within our reach (Heb 13:3; 1Pe 5:9).
2. That of pastors and ordinary Christians (1Pe 5:3; 1Co 4:15-16; Heb 13:7).
II. What is this imitation.
1. There must be an action. To imitate is not to commemorate, or admire and commend, but to do likewise (Joh 8:39).
2. A conformity to the example both for matter and manner (Luk 1:17) with the same affection of zeal and courage against sin.
3. A purpose and endeavour of imitating and not by accident. Christ must be imitated principally, and then His choice servants.
III. How far we must imitate.
1. Not in evil things; for the best have their blemishes
2. Not in exempted cases or things done by special command (Gen 22:10; Exo 12:35; Num 25:27; 2Ki 1:10) or infallible gifts.
IV. Why we must imitate the good examples set before us.
1. Because it is a great part of the communion of saints to profit by one anothers graces (Rom 1:12).
2. It is one end of these graces; for God hath bestowed them, not only for their benefit who have them, but also for the sake of others (chap. 1:11; 1Th 1:7).
3. They show us the way to heaven more clearly and compendiously (1Pe 3:1).
4. In the example of others we have encouragement as well as instruction (1Pe 5:9; 1Co 10:13; Heb 6:12).
V. Uses.
1. To show us that good examples
(1) must be given,
(a) Consider what regard we owe to weak Christians that we set them not an ill copy.
(b) We shall have to give an account of those sins into which we draw others. Jeroboams idolatry outlived him, and so a man may sin after he is dead (1Ti 5:22).
(c) God is severe on His scandalous children (1Sa 12:14; 2Sa 12:10-12).
(d) Gods people are to show forth His praises (1Pe 2:9; Isa 43:10).
(e) It is a greater honour to be than to take an example (1Th 1:7; Eph 1:12).
(2) Must be taken.
(a) It is a shame to come short of those who are upon the same level with us.
(b) There are none but may learn something from others.
(c) We are accountable for good examples as for other helps and means of grace.
2. To show us how cautious we should be not to be infected by bad examples.
VI. Heroes to make us exemplary.
1. Love to God or zeal for His glory (Psa 119:165).
2. Love to the brethrens souls (1Jn 2:10).
3. A sincere seriousness in our profession (Php 1:10).
4. Watchfulness (2Co 6:3; 1Co 10:32; Luk 17:3).
5. Mortification (Mat 5:9).
6. A heart in heaven. (T. Manton, D. D.)
Example is powerful
Dr. Percy called upon Johnson to take him to Goldsmiths lodgings; he found Johnson arrayed with unusual care in a new suit of clothes, a new hat, and a well-powdered wig, and could not but notice his uncommon spruceness. Why, sir, replied Johnson, I hear that Goldsmith, who is a very great sloven, justifies his disregard of cleanliness and decency by quoting my practice, and I am desirous this night to show him a better example. (Washington Irving.)
Whilst stationed in Scotland, Colonel Durnford happened to be between Berwick and Holy Island, where a small craft had struck on the coast during a storm. Seeing the hesitation of the fishermen to go to the rescue, he jumped into a boat, calling out, Will none of you come with me? If not, I shall go alone; and a volunteer crew at once joined him, and succeeded in rescuing those in peril. (Literary World.)
Dont you ever take wine? said a hospitable, easy-souled bishop to a friend, before whom he pushed the Madeira. Are you afraid of it? No, replied his wiser friend; I am afraid of the example.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Php 3:17-18
For many walk of whom I have told you often
False professors
I.
Their character.
1. Sensual.
2. Without shame.
3. Earthly.
II. Their spirit.
1. Opposed to the Spirit;
2. Doctrine;
3. Cause of the Cross.
III. Their end.
1. Certain destruction.
2. Aggravated misery.
IV. The feelings with which they are to be regarded.
1. Sorrow.
2. Pity.
3. Fear (Jud 1:23). (J. Lyth, D. D.)
False professors solemnly warned
Paul was a model pastor.
1. Watchful: his eyes were ever on the Churches.
2. Honest: he did not flinch from telling the whole truth.
3. Affectionate–Tell you even weeping. Paul wept for three things.
I. Their guilt.
1. They were sensual persons. There were those in the early Church who would go from the Lords table to heathen feasts, others indulged in the lusts of the flesh. And are not some professors so fond of the table and dress as to make a god of their body.
2. They did mind earthly things, and so we have ambitious, covetous Christians. They gloried in their shame, and a professing sinner generally does so more than any one else.
II. The mischief they were doing. He says emphatically that they are the enemies. The infidel, the swearer, the persecutor is an enemy. Christ is wounded in gin palaces, etc., but most grievously of all in the house of His friends. Caesar wept not till Brutus stabbed him. It is honourable to be defeated by enemies, but disgraceful to be betrayed by friends. The wicked professor is the worst enemy because–
1. He grieves the Church more than any one else.
2. Nothing divides the Church so much.
3. Nothing has ever hurt poor sinners more. Many seekers would find sooner if it were not for the ill lives of professors.
4. They give the devil more theme for laughter, and the enemy more cause for joy than any other class.
III. Because he knew their doom–Destruction. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The sensual and worldly exposed
1. The object of the apostle in the statement of his own consecration in the earlier part of the chapter was that he might the more emphatically express his desire to others that they would imitate his example (Php 3:15-16), and enjoy with him the reward (Php 3:20-21). He did not wish to stand on an elevation solitary and unapproached.
2. The exhortation is enforced by a distressing contrast–men who desired to be considered the followers of Christ, but over whom the obligations of religion had no power and who were proceeding fast through deep degradation to perdition. Observe–
I. The guilt attributed to the characters described. They were members and perhaps teachers; not open blasphemers but pretended votaries. They were–
1. Sensualists.
(1) Whose God is their belly denotes the gross and brutish indulgences to which they resorted for pleasure (Rom 16:17-18). To pamper the appetites of the body is a tendency the power and prevalence of which cannot be sufficiently mourned (Mar 7:21-23; Gal 5:19-21), and even where there is the restraint which arises from civil institutions, care of reputation, and other motives, there is but a modification in the development of the evil, and not the removal of the evil itself. The purpose of the gospel is to overcome the propensities of original nature and turn men away from what is degrading to what is sanctifying. But there was and is an attempt to pervert the principle of the gospel, and, by the most infamous of all sophisms, to show that we are permitted to sin that grace may abound. Awful and abominable is that heresy which would thus attempt to poison the waters of purity at their very fountain.
(2) The strength of the sensuality thus deprecated is expressed with remarkable force. Whose God is their belly; and under the sovereign influence of that debasing passion they glory in their shame. They make a virtue of their subjection, a boast of their idolatry. They who regard the gratification of their appetites as the end of their existence are worshippers of their loathsome passions. They have as much denied the God of heaven as if they had acknowledged the deities of Olympus.
2. Worldlings. It may seem strange that this disposition should be placed in connection with the others as of the same kind and degree of criminality, but the phrase used expresses absorption in the concerns of the present world to the exclusion of another. And this neglect of futurity arises from the same depravity as the other. Worldliness, condemned as idolatry, is only another development of depravity; for Christianity is designed to impress our race with the high solemnities of a world to come (Mat 6:19-21; Col 2:2; 1Jn 2:15), and when you are told of men who mind earthly things you are told of men who commit a sweeping act of blasphemy against the whole.
II. The conclusions deduced as to these characters on Christian principles. It is affirmed–
1. They are malignant adversaries of the mediatorial character and work of the Son of God.
(1) When men are enemies of the Cross, they are hostile to every purpose for which Christ came into the world.
(2) In this manner a charge is advanced of special emphasis and solemnity. There is not ascribed a mere ordinary failure to comply with some of the precepts of religion, but a direct and daring enmity against that without which religion would be nothing (Rom 6:4-6; 2Co 5:15; Tit 2:14; Col 3:11). They are enemies because–
(a) They refute the grand design for which alone it was ever regarded.
(b) They are the means of degrading it in the world, and exposing it to public reproach. It is not the Jew, the heathen, the savage persecutor, or the blaspheming infidel, but the man who assumes the cross as his badge.
2. Their career terminates in the woes of avenging retribution. The Cross affords the only hope of salvation. The votaries of passions and habits so hostile to the purifying principles and purposes of redeeming love are therefore necessarily placed under the awful anathema of heaven (2Pe 2:10 to end).
III. The impulse which the contemplation of such characters inspires. Tell you even weeping. Their case dwelt much on his mind, and occupied much of his ministry. To the same anxiety he refers especially in Act 20:18-19; Act 20:29-31. This proceeded–
1. From a dread lest the disciples of the gospel should contract their guilt. There was a loud call for vigilance lest the infection should spread.
2. From a deep concern for the peril of those by whom the guilt had been contracted already. Paul was not only anxious for the Church, but for his fellow immortals actually in a state of condemnation (Psa 119:136; Jer 9:1; Luk 19:41-42). It is not possible surely to contemplate the present debasement and final ruin of the sinner without sincere and heart-rending sorrow. (J. Parsons.)
The Cross and its enemies
I. The cross of Christ. To the nations of antiquity the cross conveyed the same idea as the gibbet does today. It was a badge of infamy. The Cross of Christ, however, includes all the truths involved in His death. It was not the crucifixion these people opposed, but the principles associated therewith. Regard it, then, as the symbol of debasing truths, of notions most offensive to pride. For in the Cross we see the extreme evil of sin, the necessity of a righteousness beyond mans power, the need of the substitution of a perfect sacrifice to our salvation.
1. The source of powerful motives. There is no more powerful incentive to holiness than in the Cross. Its profession commits a man to deadness to the sin for which Christ died.
2. The signal of an amazing conflict. Christs death resulted from the depravity of the Jews, and the machinations of the devil. By that the arch enemy thought holiness would be overthrown, and thus he stirred all his agencies in earth and hell to effect it. But God so ordered it that it led on to a conflict with the principles of evil, which shall terminate in the final triumph of Christ. Opposed now, He and we with Him shall be ultimately victorious.
II. The enemies of the cross. They are described in verse 2 as opposed to the Christians in verse 3, etc.
1. They were proud men who valued their own righteousness. Gross sensual evils are not the only things offensive to God; all substitutes for the Cross as the only means of salvation are obnoxious to Him.
2. Sensual men who lived for their own pleasure. The Cross means mortification of the flesh; to pamper it, therefore, is to defeat the purpose of the Cross.
3. Worldly men who held to their possessions in opposition to the desire for heavenly things (verse 19). The votaries of pleasure, the anxious, the miser, etc., come under this category.
4. Timid men who screened their own persons, for fear of worldly loss or persecution.
III. The awful condition of all such persons.
1. They glory in their degradation; in their self-righteousness, sinful pleasures, or worldliness, or cowardice.
2. They pursue their own destruction–The wages of sin is death. (J. Blackburn.)
Consistency and usefulness
The conscience of a backsliding professor was smitten by the active and earnest efforts of a more faithful brother, whom he at length offered to assist in devotional services. To this objection was made by one who said, I cannot hear him pray for me. His life does not pray. Let him repent of his unfaithfulness and confess to God and men, and then we will hear him. If we would have our prayers credited as sincere, our lives must be in accordance with them. (Paxton Hood.)
Enemies of the Cross of Christ: their suicidal policy
What would you think if there were to be an insurrection in a hospital, and sick man should conspire with sick man, and on a certain day should rise up and reject the doctors and nurses? There they would be–sickness and disease within, and all the help without! Yet what is a hospital compared with this fever-ridden world, which goes swinging in pain and anguish through the centuries, when men say, We have got rid of the atonement, and we have got rid of the Bible? Yes, and you have rid yourselves of salvation. (H. W. Beecher.)
Professed friends secret foes
When a small band of Protestants were striving for their liberties in Switzerland, they bravely defended a pass against an immense host. Though their dearest friends were slain, and they themselves were weary and ready to drop with fatigue, they stood firm in the defence of the cause they had espoused. On a sudden, however, a cry was heard–a dread and terrible shriek. The enemy was winding up a steep acclivity, and when the commander turned his eye thither, O how his brow gathered with storm! He ground his teeth, and stamped his foot, for he knew that some caitiff Protestant had led the bloodthirsty foe up the goat track to slay his friends. Then turning to his friends, he said, On; and like a lion on his prey, they rushed upon their enemies, ready now to die, for a friend had betrayed them. So feels the bold hearted Christian when he sees his fellow member betraying Christ, when he beholds the citadel of Christianity given up to its foes by those who pretend to be its friends. Beloved, I would rather have a thousand devils out of the Church than have one in it. I do not care about all the adversaries outside; our greatest cause of fear is from the crafty wolves in sheeps clothing that devour the flock. It is against such that we would denounce in holy wrath the solemn sentence of Divine indignation, and for such we would shed our bitterest tears of sorrow. They are the enemies of the Cross of Christ. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 17. Brethren, be followers – of me] In the things of Christ let me be your line, and my writings preaching, and conduct, your rule.
And mark them] . Still alluding to the line in the stadium, keep your eye steadily fixed on those who walk-live, as ye have us-myself, Timothy, and Epaphroditus, for an ensample.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Brethren, be followers together of me; he doth here not only propound his own single example to the brethren at Philippi, as he doth to others elsewhere, 1Co 4:16, implying the limitation there expressed, viz. as he and others were followers of God and Christ, 1Co 11:1; Eph 5:1; 1Th 1:6; 2:14; but, by a word expressing joint consent, he would have them to be fellow imitators or fellow followers of him and others in what he had exhorted them to, yea, with one heart.
And mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample; so they would be like other churches which he had planted, that had an eye upon his example; whom he would have them accurately to observe, following their faith, and considering the end of their conversation, Heb 13:7, agreeing with his, and Timothys, (who joined with him in this Epistle), and others, in opposition to those who were causal of division, Rom 16:17; 1Co 1:12, even such as he describes, Phi 3:18,19; who did not lord it over Gods heritage, but were ensamples (in faith, love, and humility) to the flock, 2Co 1:24; 1Ti 4:12; Tit 2:7,8; 1Pe 5:3.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
17. followersGreek,“imitators together.”
of meas I am animitator of Christ (1Co11:1): Imitate me no farther than as I imitate Christ. Or asBENGEL “My fellowimitators of God” or “Christ”; “imitators ofChrist together with me” (see on Php2:22; Eph 5:1).
markfor imitation.
which walk so as ye have usfor an ensampleIn English Version of the former clause,the translation of this clause is, “those who are walking so asye have an example in us.” But in BENGEL’Stranslation, “inasmuch as,” or “since,” insteadof “as.”
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Brethren, be followers together of me,…. Not that the apostle set up himself as the head of a party, which is what he always blamed in others; he did not assume a dominion over the faith of men, or seek to lord it over God’s heritage; nor did he desire any to be followers of him, any further than he was a follower of Christ; and in what he was, whether in doctrine or practice, he desires to be followed in: and here he has a particular regard to what went before, concerning reckoning what was gain loss; accounting all things but dung, in comparison of the knowledge of Christ, looking to his righteousness alone for justification, Php 3:9; disclaiming perfection, yet forgetting things behind; reaching towards things before, and pressing to the mark for the prize, Php 3:13; and walking according to the rule of God’s word; in which things he had some that followed him, who were his spiritual children, and to whom he had been useful in conversion and edification; see 1Co 4:15; and he would therefore have these Philippians followers of him, “together” with them; and which contains in it an encouraging reason, or argument, since others were followers of him; or together with one another, he was desirous, that one and all of them might follow him; that they might all go in the same way, profess the same truth, be found in the practice of the same things, worship the Lord with one consent, pursue the same ends, and draw all the same way; and so be as the church was, like a company of horses in Pharaoh’s chariot, So 1:9;
and mark them which walk so; as the apostle did, and those that were followers of him; these he would have them mark, observe, attentively look to; not as others, who cause offences and divisions, and obey not the word, in order to shun, avoid, and keep no company with; but to imitate and follow, and next to Christ, the mark, to make use of them as inferior ones:
as ye have us for an ensample, or “type”; believers should be ensamples one to another, especially ministers of the word; pastors of churches are not to be lords over God’s heritage, but to be ensamples to the flock, 1Pe 5:3, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit; in faith, in purity, as the apostle exhorts Timothy, 1Ti 4:12, and in these things they are to be followed by believers.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| The Apostle Urges His Own Example. | A. D. 62. |
17 Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample. 18 (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: 19 Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.) 20 For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: 21 Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.
He closes the chapter with warnings and exhortations.
I. He warns them against following the examples of seducers and evil teachers (Phi 3:18; Phi 3:19): Many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. Observe,
1. There are many called by Christ’s name who are enemies to Christ’s cross, and the design and intention of it. Their walk is a surer evidence what they are than their profession. By their fruits you shall know them, Matt. vii. 20. The apostle warns people against such, (1.) Very frequently: I have told you often. We so little heed the warnings given us that we have need to have them repeated. To write the same things is safe, v. 1. (2.) Feelingly and affectionately: I now tell you weeping. Paul was upon proper occasions a weeping preacher, as Jeremiah was a weeping prophet. Observe, An old sermon may be preached with new affections; what we say often we may say again, if we say it affectionately, and are ourselves under the power of it.
2. He gives us the characters of those who were the enemies of the cross of Christ. (1.) Whose God is their belly. They minded nothing but their sensual appetites. A wretched idol it is, and a scandal for any, but especially for Christians, to sacrifice the favour of God, the peace of their conscience, and their eternal happiness to it. Gluttons and drunkards make a god of their belly, and all their care is to please it and make provision for it. The same observance which good people give to God epicures give to their appetites. Of such he says, They serve not the Lord Jesus Christ, but their own bellies, Rom. xvi. 18. (2.) They glory in their shame. They not only sinned, but boasted of it and gloried in that of which they ought to have been ashamed. Sin is the sinner’s shame, especially when it is gloried in. “They value themselves for what is their blemish and reproach.” (3.) They mind earthly things. Christ came by his cross to crucify the world to us and us to the world; and those who mind earthly things act directly contrary to the cross of Christ, and this great design of it. They relish earthly things, and have no relish of the things which are spiritual and heavenly. They set their hearts and affections on earthly things; they love them, and even dote upon them, and have a confidence and complacency in them. He gives them this character, to show how absurd it would be for Christians to follow the example of such or be led away by them; and, to deter us all from so doing, he reads their doom. (4.) Whose end is destruction. Their way seems pleasant, but death and hell are at the end of it. What fruit had you then in those things whereof you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death, Rom. vi. 21. It is dangerous following them, though it is going down the stream; for, if we choose their way, we have reason to fear their end. Perhaps he alludes to the total destruction of the Jewish nation.
II. He proposes himself and his brethren for an example, in opposition to these evil examples: Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark those who walk as you have us for an example, v. 17. Mark them out for your pattern. He explains himself (v. 20) by their regard to Christ and heaven: For our conversation is in heaven. Observe, Good Christians, even while they are here on earth, have their conversation in heaven. Their citizenship is there, politeuma. As if he had said, We stand related the that world, and are citizens of the New Jerusalem. This world is not our home, but that is. There our greatest privileges and concerns lie. And, because our citizenship is there, our conversation is there; being related to that world, we keep up a correspondence with it. The life of a Christian is in heaven, where his head is, and his home is, and where he hopes to be shortly; he sets his affections upon things above; and where his heart is there will his conversation be. The apostle had pressed them to follow him and other ministers of Christ: “Why,” might they say, “you are a company of poor, despised, persecuted people, who make no figure, and pretend to no advantages in the world; who will follow you?” “Nay,” says he, “but our conversation is in heaven. We have a near relation and a great pretension to the other world, and are not so mean and despicable as we are represented.” It is good having fellowship with those who have fellowship with Christ, and conversation with those whose conversation is in heaven.
1. Because we look for the Saviour from heaven (v. 20): Whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is not here, he has ascended, he has entered within the veil for us; and we expect his second coming thence, to gather in all the citizens of that New Jerusalem to himself.
2. Because at the second coming of Christ we expect to be happy and glorified there. There is good reason to have our conversation in heaven, not only because Christ is now there, but because we hope to be there shortly: Who shall change our vile bodies, that they may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, v. 21. There is a glory reserved for the bodies of the saints, which they will be instated in at the resurrection. The body is now at the best a vile body, to soma tes tapeinoseos hemon—the body of our humiliation: it has its rise and origin from the earth, it is supported out of the earth, and is subject to many diseases and to death at last. Besides, it is often the occasion and instrument of much sin, which is called the body of this death, Rom. vii. 24. Or it may be understood of its vileness when it lies in the grave; at the resurrection it will be found a vile body, resolved into rottenness and dust; the dust will return to the earth as it was, Eccl. xii. 7. But it will be made a glorious body; and not only raised again to life, but raised to great advantage. Observe, (1.) The sample of this change, and that is, the glorious body of Christ; when he was transfigured upon the mount, his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light, Matt. xvii. 2. He went to heaven clothed with a body, that he might take possession of the inheritance in our nature, and be not only the first-born from the dead, but the first-born of the children of the resurrection. We shall be conformed to the image of his Son, that he may be the first-born among many brethren, Rom. viii. 29. (2.) The power by which this change will be wrought: According to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. There is an efficacy of power, an exceeding greatness of power, and the working of mighty power, Eph. i. 19. It is matter of comfort to us that he can subdue all things to himself, and sooner or later will bring over all into his interest. And the resurrection will be wrought by this power. I will raise him up at the last day, John vi. 44. Let this confirm our faith of the resurrection, that we not only have the scriptures, which assure us it shall be, but we know the power of God, which can effect it, Matt. xxii. 29. At Christ’s resurrection was a glorious instance of the divine power, and therefore he is declared to be the Son of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead (Rom. i. 4), so will our resurrection be: and his resurrection is a standing evidence, as well as pattern, of ours. And then all the enemies of the Redeemer’s kingdom will be completely conquered. Not only he who had the power of death, that is, the devil (Heb. ii. 14), but the last enemy, shall be destroyed, that is, death, 1 Cor. xv. 26, shall be swallowed up in victory, v. 54.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Imitators together of me ( ). Found only here so far, though Plato uses . “Vie with each other in imitating me” (Lightfoot).
Mark (). Old verb from (verse 14). “Keep your eyes on me as goal.” Mark and follow, not avoid as in Ro 16:17.
An ensample (). Originally the impression left by a stroke (Joh 20:25), then a pattern (mould) as here (cf. 1Thess 1:7; 1Cor 10:6; 1Cor 10:11; Rom 5:14; Rom 6:17).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Followers together of me [ ] . Only here in the New Testament. Rev., more correctly, imitators. Compare 1Co 11:1. Not imitators of Christ in common with me, but be together, jointly, imitators of me.
Mark [] . See on looking, ch. 2 4.
So as [ ] . Rev., “which so walk even as ye have,” etc. The two words are correlative. Briefly, imitate me and those who follow my example.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
TRUTH AND UNITY WITHOUT COMPROMISE
1) Brethren, be followers together of me,” (summimetai mou ginesthe adelphoi) “Brethren be ye fellow-or colleague- imitators of me,” as Paul followed Christ and kept his ordinances he admonished church brethren to follow him in Christ, 1Co 11:1-2.
2) “And mark them which walk” (kai skopeite tous houto peripatountas) “and mark the ones thus walking,” such as Epaphroditus, their own church missionary and Clement, brethren close to them and fellowhelpers of Paul, Php_4:3.
3) “So as ye have us for an ensample” (kathos echete tupon hemas) “Just as ye have us (as) an example or type” a pattern, as a “seal” or “stamp,” made by a die, in sealing, certifying authenticity, as a notary, corporate, or government seal, a certification of authenticity. Thus, they were to conduct themselves, walk in the Christian way as Paul and his Missionary workers had done, Php_4:9; 1Pe 5:3.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
17 Mark them By this expression he means, that it is all one to him what persons they single out for themselves for imitation, provided they conform themselves to that purity of which he was a pattern. By this means all suspicion of ambition is taken away, for the man that is devoted to his own interests wishes to have no rival. At the same time he warns them that all are not to be imitated indiscriminately, as he afterwards explains more fully.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Php. 3:17. Followers together of me.He does not, as some ungracious pastors do, show the steep road to perfection whilst himself staying at the wicket-gate. Like the good Shepherd he leadeth his sheep.
Php. 3:18. For many walk the enemies of the cross of Christ.Christians in name only, whose loose interpretations of the perfect law of liberty make it possible to live an animal life. The cross of Christ, symbol of His self-renunciation, should be the place of execution for all fleshly desires of His followers; and, instead of that, these men over whom an apostle laments have made it an opportunity of sensual gratification. They say, We cannot help Him; He does not need our help; it is of little consequence how we live.
Php. 3:19. Whose end is destruction.Beet argues from this that Universalism cannot be true. It must be admitted that St. Paul is speaking of sins of the body, and perhaps is thinking of the ruinous effects of fleshly indulgence. Whose god is their belly.Against the dominion of appetite all the teachers of mankind are at one. All agree in repudiating the doctrine of the savage:
I bow to neer a god except myself
And to my Belly, first of deities.
Seeley.
The self-indulgence which wounds the tender conscience and turns liberty into licence is here condemned (Lightfoot). Whose glory is in their shame.Their natures are so utterly perverted that they count that which is their degradation as matter for pride. Like the man whom our Lord describes, such men not only fear not God, nor regard man, but can lightly vaunt the fact. Who mind earthly things.The peculiar form of expression is noteworthy. At these men, of the earth, earthy, the apostle stands looking in amazement. His expression reminds us of St. James: Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord; a doubleminded man, unstable in all his ways (so the R.V.).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Php. 3:17-19
Good and Bad Examples.
I. A good example should be attentively studied.Mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample (Php. 3:17). We cannot imitate what we do not see and know. It will help us to be good if we carefully watch and meditate on the conduct of the truly good. The best example of uprightness and consistency is worthy of the most painstaking study. Wherever they found the life of the apostle imitated and displayed the Philippians were to mark it and make it their pattern. Any excellence which they thus discovered they might by Gods grace attain to. It was not some distant spectacle they were to gaze at and admire, but an embodiment of earnest faith, walking on the same platform with them, and speaking, acting, praying, suffering, and weeping among them. What had been possible to others was surely not impossible to them (Eadie). A Polish prince was accustomed to carry the picture of his father always in his bosom, and on particular occasions used to take it out and view it, saying, Let me do nothing unbecoming so excellent a father.
II. A good example should be faithfully imitated.Brethren, be followers together of me (Php. 3:17). Paul had studied profoundly the character of Christ, and was earnestly striving to follow Him. He therefore exhorts the Philippians to imitate him as he sought to imitate Christ; or rather, as Bengel puts it, he invites them to be fellow-imitators of Christ. To imitate Christ is not copying Him in every particular. We cannot follow Him as Saviour, Mediator, Redeemer. What is meant is, that we are to do our work in the Spirit of Christ, as He would do it. He who follows Christ never misses the right way, and is always led on to victory. When in the Mexican war the troops were wavering, a general rose in his stirrups and dashed into the enemies lines, shouting, Men, follow me! They, inspired by his courageous example, dashed on after him and gained the victory. What men want to rally them for God is an example to lead them.
III. A bad example is in antagonism to the highest truth.Many walk, of whom I have told you, they are the enemies of the cross of Christ (Php. 3:18). Professed friends, dubious in their attachment and promises, are enemies of Christ, and of the great movement in human redemption represented by His cross. While professing to maintain the doctrines of the cross, by their wicked lives they are depreciating them.
1. A bad example is set by those who concentrate their chief thought on the material.Who mind earthly things (Php. 3:19). The world has many attractions, but it has also many dangers. To be wholly absorbed in its pursuits weans the soul from God and holiness and heaven. Gosse tells us, in his Romance of Natural History, of certain animals which inhabit the coral reefs. So long as they keep the passage to the surface clear they are safe; but, this neglected, the animal finds the coral has grown around it and enclosed it in a living tomb. And so it is with the life of the soul on earth. The world is around us everywhere; the danger is when we allow it to grow between our souls and God.
2. A bad example is set by those who are supremely controlled by their sensual appetites.Whose God is their belly (Php. 3:19). The desires of the flesh invite to self-indulgenceto gluttony, revelling, drunkenness; to gaudiness, extravagance, and immodesty of dress; to impurity of speech and conduct. A sensual man looks as if lust had drawn her foul fingers over his features and wiped out the man. The philosopher Antisthenes, who had a contempt for all sensual enjoyment, used to say, I would rather be mad than sensual.
3. A bad example is set by those who gloat in their degradation.Whose glory is in their shame (Php. 3:19). Man has reached the lowest depth of vice when he boasts in what is really his shame. The last rag of modesty is thrown aside. These enemies of the cross were not hypocrites, but open and avowed sensualists, conscious of no inconsistency, but rather justifying their vices, and thus perverting the gospel formally for such detestable conduct.
4. The end of a bad example is ruin.Whose end is destruction (Php. 3:19). Evil is the broad way that leadeth to destruction. Sin must be inevitably punished; it works its own fatesin when it is finished bringeth forth death. Judge Buller, speaking to a young gentleman of sixteen, cautioned him against being led astray by the example or persuasion of others, and said, If I had listened to the advice of some of those who called themselves my friends, when I was young, instead of being a judge of the Kings Bench, I should have died long ago a prisoner in the Kings prison.
IV. Professed members of the Church who set a bad example are the occasion of constant solicitude and sorrow to the truly good.For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping (Php. 3:18). Even when denouncing the worst sins, the apostle does it, not with harshness and imperious superiority, but with the greatest tenderness and grief. The anxious minister may well weep over the folly and delusion of half-hearted adherents, over their false and distorted conceptions of the gospel, over the reproach brought against the truth by their inconsistent and licentious lives, and over their lamentable end. The conduct of sinners is more a matter of heart-breaking sorrow than of wrathful indignation.
Lessons.
1. Example is more potent than precept.
2. A bad example should be carefully shunned.
3. A good example should be diligently imitated.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Php. 3:17. Imitation of the Good
I. Possible only where there is a sympathetic resemblance to and admiration of the character sought to be copied.Brethren.
II. Is easier when joined with those who have similar aims.Be followers together of me.
III. Is aided by careful observation and study.Mark them.
IV. Every good man is an example for others to imitate.So as ye have us for an ensample.
Php. 3:18-19. Enemies of the Cross
I. Deny the efficacy and purpose of Christs sufferings.
II. Are incompetent to appreciate the spiritual significance of the cross.Who mind earthly things.
III. Are the victims of sensuality.Whose god is their belly.
IV. Are degraded beyond all bounds of modesty.Whose glory is in their shame.
V. Will be inevitably punished.Whose end is destruction.
VI. Are the cause of much grief to those who must constantly expose them.Of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
17. Brethren, be ye imitators together of me, and mark them that so walk even as ye have us for an example.
Translation and Paraphrase
17. Be ye (all of you) fellow-imitators (imitators together) of me, (my) brothers, and be keeping your gaze upon those who are walking in this manner, according to (the manner which) ye have and see in us (as) a pattern.
Notes
1.
Php. 3:17-21 forms a new subtopic in our outline, which we entitle Why Be Imitators of Paul. This section further develops the topic of chapter three, False Teachers Contrasted with Pauls example.
Two reasons in Php. 3:18-21 are given for imitating Paul and marking (taking notice of) those who live by Pauls example:
(1)
Many people are enemies of the cross;
(2)
Our citizenship is in heaven.
We could say that Php. 3:2-16 warns us to beware of the law-keepers, and Php. 3:17-21 warns us to beware of the lawless.
2.
The Philippians were urgedboth as individuals and as a groupto imitate Paul. They were to be imitators together (KJV followers) of Paul. Paul could say what few preachers can: Imitate me. Compare 1Co. 11:1; 2Th. 3:9.
3.
They were furthermore to mark (that is, note, or observe, or behold) those who were walking (that is, living) according to the example of Paul.
We should be very selective about our friends and the people we imitate. This might seem to contradict Mat. 7:1, which says, Judge not. However, Mat. 7:1 by no means forbids us to observe the conduct of people and to evaluate it. It only forbids us to form critical opinions of people on the basis of feelings and prejudice. Our instinctive emotional reactions toward people must be kept in check. However, observation of their deeds is necessary. By their fruits ye shall know them. (Mat. 7:16). He that doeth righteousness is righteous. He that doeth sin is of the devil. (1Jn. 3:7-8) Let us therefore mark (note) those who so walk as Paul walked for our example.
4.
Ensample means a pattern, type, or example. Ensample and example are close synonyms.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(17) Followers together of me.The word is peculiar. It signifies unite in following me. In accordance with the genius of the whole Epistle, St. Paul offers his example as a help not only to rectitude but to unity. For the simple phrase followers of me, see 1Co. 4:16; 1Co. 11:1; 1Th. 1:6; 2Th. 3:9. In 1Co. 11:1, a passage dealing with the right restraints of Christian liberty, we have the ground on which the exhortation is based, Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. In that consciousness, knowing the peculiar power of example, both for teaching and for encouragement, St. Paul will not allow even humility to prevent his bringing it to bear upon them. Yet even then we note how gladly he escapes from followers of me to the having us for an example.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
(17-21) In these verses St. Paul turns from the party of Pharisaic perfection to the opposite party of Antinomian profligacy, claiming, no doubt, to walk in the way of Christian liberty which he preached. The co-existence of these two parties was, it may be remarked, a feature of the Gnosticism already beginning to show itself in the Church. He deals with this perversion of liberty into licentiousness in exactly the same spirit as in Romans 6, but with greater brevity; with less of argument and more of grave condemnation. It stands, indeed, he says, self-condemned, by the very fact of our present citizenship in heaven, and our growth towards the future perfection of likeness to Christ in glory.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
3. Warning against immoral examples, Php 3:17 to Php 4:1.
17. Followers together That is, unitedly imitators of the apostle in his life, as described in the preceding context, and as they knew it from personal observation. Furthermore, they were to studiously mark those holy men among themselves whose lives were such as they saw his own to be.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Brothers, be you imitators together of me, and mark them that so walk even as you have us for an example.’
Having sought to establish a proper mindset, Paul points out that a further aid in godly living is the example of mature Christians of repute, whose example they are to follow. Here Paul calls on the Philippians as a whole to be imitators of him, and to note those who walk as he walked. It is such people who should be taken as their example. Note the important twofold step towards Christian living. First the mindset must be firmly and properly established, and then it must affect the practise.
It is possibly significant that he does not point to Christ as the example, which might militate against Php 2:5-11 being set up simply as an example. It would be strange, if his intention in Php 2:5-11 had been to give an example to follow, that he did not mention it here.
They would know something of Paul’s behaviour from the time when he had been with them, and that would have been expanded on by visiting teachers and Christians, and especially by Epaphroditus. Furthermore previously in this letter he has already indicated different aspects of his walk e.g. Php 3:4-14. By this we are assured that what was true of Paul in 8-14, is to be equally as true of us in our walk with Christ. We must be sharers together, along with Paul, of a similar experience. We should note therefore that Paul is not calling them to a slavish imitation of himself as though he was some great one whose way of life was to be copied, but to a following of him in his wholehearted commitment to participation in Christ’s death and resurrection, and in his total dedication to single-heartedness in the Christian race, as described above.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
A warning call:
v. 17. Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample.
v. 18. (for many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the Cross of Christ;
v. 19. whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)
v. 20. For our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
v. 21. who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself. The apostle here again places himself before his readers as an example: Become imitators of me, brethren, and watch diligently those walking thus as you have us as types. In this respect the apostle could set forward his own person and that of his coworkers as types and examples. Every pastor should he an example to his flock also in the matter of sanctification, that the members of his charge may look upon him as a pattern, that they may walk and live as they have him for their type and example. All true Christians will be glad to be imitators of the apostle, to follow his example and that of every true laborer in the Lord. And the more advanced Christians are, in turn, patterns for the weaker brethren to model after.
This is very necessary: For many walk regarding whom I have often told you, hut now also say it weeping, the enemies of the Cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god the belly, and the glory in the shame, that think upon things of the world. The good types and examples among the Christian brethren must he followed all the more carefully because there are also false leaders that may easily persuade the weaker brethren. Of these the apostle had often spoken in the old days of personal intercourse, he had given them a careful warning. But now he is obliged to repeat his warning with tears. From the reports that had come to him Paul had gained the information that there were false Christians, backsliders, among those that claimed leadership, such as had denied real Christianity. These men he now exposes as enemies of the Cross of Christ. In their entire life they deny the power and efficacy of the Cross, of the salvation of Christ and its message. Such false brethren must be shunned all the more carefully because their end is destruction. If anyone follows their leadership, he will be brought by them into everlasting damnation. All their show of sanctity is nothing but hypocrisy, as their victims will find out to their great sorrow. With all their Christian veneer, their sole object in life, the sum and substance of their thinking and planning, is eating and drinking, the gratification of their sensual appetites, of the desires of the body. They regard as glory, as something to be proud of, they seek happiness in, such things as are in reality their shame, with which they will only heap upon themselves the final contempt. Their so-called liberty is nothing but bondage to sensual lusts. They think only of carnal things, of matters pertaining to this world. Paul does not say that they are slaves of all vices. But he refers to such as boast of their moral living, of their civic righteousness, under its cloak, however, seeking only the gratification of matters pertaining to this world. These men were not members of the Philippian congregation, but were associated with the false teachers that were attempting to gain entrance into the congregation. The two classes of people supplement each other, the one seeking an outward, formal righteousness and teaching the people accordingly, the other making use of such outward forms for a cloak of carnal desires and gratifications. The characterization fits in many cases even today. The general disposition and moral tendency of the majority, even such as consider themselves Christians, is worldly. Outwardly a coat of Christian varnish, ceremonies and morality, and at the same time all the amusements and pastimes of the unchristian world. Such men and congregations are a steady menace to all sincere Christians. Every Christian is inclined to be as lenient as possible toward himself, and hence is easily led into paths of flowery ease, to the detriment of his soul’s salvation.
The contrast afforded by the lives of true Christians is marked: For our citizenship is in heaven, whence we also expect the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our lowly condition to be in the same form as the body of His glory, according to the working of His being able to subject all things to Himself. Another lofty passage, which somehow transports the reader beyond the bounds of this earthly life to the blessed home beyond. They, the enemies, have all their interests here below, they desire only the gratification of their worldly ambitions. But the Christians’ thoughts are directed heavenwards, because they are citizens above. Their home, their interests, are in heaven; that is their true fatherland, their home country; there their citizenship is assured to them. And the believers look longingly up to heaven, because they also wait for, they expect, the Savior from the heavenly state, from the home above. There the place is prepared for us, where we shall live forever, He is our Savior at all times, as our Advocate with the Father He is continuing the work of His office. But the last act of His salvation is before us, namely, when He will deliver us from all evil and translate us into His heavenly kingdom. Incidentally He will deliver us from our weak and sinful flesh which is a continual hindrance to all good works. When He comes, He will change the body of this our lowly, vile condition. He will change the aspect, the form of that body. That is the final goal of sanctification, so far as our physical body is concerned, that it be cleansed from its frailty, from its sinful condition, the result of the Fall. The body itself, subject to death, sinks into the grave and becomes a prey to corruption and worms. But that is not the end. Christ will, on the last day, change the form of the Christians into the likeness of His glorious body. ALL sinfulness, all weakness, all the consequences of sin will be purged out of our body. The glory of the exalted Christ will permeate this our flesh, and it will be made a spiritual body. The divine light and being will surcharge the entire body, making it a holy, glorious, beautiful body. That is the wonderful end to which we are looking forward. Christ will use His almighty power in bringing about this result. He, to whom even death and corruption are subject, will deliver us from all evils of this present world, and, clothed in the spiritual bodies of His glory, He will take us home.
Summary
The apostle warns against Judaizing teachers, states that he has more reason to boast than they, but that he has cheerfully cast aside everything else for the possession of Christ; he places himself as a type and example before his readers, urging them to strive forward in sanctification and thus reach the heavenly goal with its glories.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Php 3:17. Be followers together of me, Here the reason very plainly appears, why he said so much of himself in the foregoing verses; and we may observe, that as he was apprehensive of the danger his Philippians were in from these Judaizers, he labours effectually to discredit them; and shews from the difference there was between his conversation and theirs, how much reason they had to follow and be directed by him rather than them. Comp. 1Co 4:16-17. However, to take off the seeming ostentation of his discourse, he joins others with himself, as examples to them.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Phi 3:17 . In carrying out this command they are to follow his example, which he has previously held up to their view, especially from Phi 3:12 onwards.
] co-imitators , is a word not elsewhere preserved. Comp., however, , Plat. Polit . p. 274 D. is neither superfluous (Heinrichs, comp. Hofmann), nor does it refer to the imitation of Christ in common with the apostle (Bengel, Ewald), a reference which cannot be derived from the remote Phi 1:30 to Phi 2:8 , and which would be expressed somewhat as in 1Co 11:1 ; 1Th 1:6 . Neither does it refer to the obligation of his readers collectively to imitate him (Beza, Grotius, and others, including Matthies, Hoelemann, van Hengel, de Wette), so that “ omnes uno consensu et una mente ” (Calvin) would be meant; but it means, as is required by the context that follows: “ una cum aliis, qui me imitantur (Estius; comp. Erasmus, Annot ., Vatablus, Cornelius a Lapide, Wiesinger, Weiss, Ellicott, and others). Theophylact aptly remarks: , whereby the weight of the exhortation is strengthened .
] direct your view to those who, etc., namely, in order to become imitators of me in like manner as they are. Other Christians, not Philippians, are meant, just as Phi 3:18 also applies to those of other places.
] does not correspond to the , as most expositors think, but is the argumentative “as ” (see on Phi 1:7 ), by which the two previous requirements, . . . and . . ., are established: in measure as ye have us for an example. This interpretation (which Wiesinger and Weiss adopt) is, notwithstanding the subtle distinction of thought which Hofmann suggests, required both by the second person (not ) and by the plural (not ). This refers not to the apostle alone (so many, and still de Wette; but in this case, as before, the singular would have been used), nor yet generally to the apostle and his companions (van Hengel, Baumgarten-Crusius, Lightfoot), especially Timothy (Hofmann), or to all tried Christians (Matthies); but to him and those ( in this manner, imitative of me ) . This view is not at variance with in the singular (de Wette); for the several of individuals are conceived collectively as . Comp. 1Th 1:7 (Lachmann, Lnemann); see also 2Th 3:9 ; comp. generally, Bernhardy, p. 58 f.; Khner, II. 1, p. 12 f. This predicative , which is therefore placed before , is emphatic.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
(2). The destiny of false Christians in contrast with that of true believers
( Php 3:17 to Php 4:1)
17Brethren, be followers together of me [become imitators of me] and mark them 18who walk so as ye have us for an ensample. For many walk, of whom I (have) told you often, and [but] now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ; 19whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. 820For our conversation [citizenship 21] is in heaven; from whence also we look for the [a] Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall [will] change [transform] our vile body [the body of our humiliation], that it may be fashioned like9 unto his glorious body [the body of his glory], according to the working whereby he is able even [also] to subdue all Php 4:1 things unto himself.10 Therefore, my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Php 3:17. Brethren, become imitators of me, , . 1Co 4:16 : . They are to look to the Apostle, to follow him, with him to act on the principle of following the light which they have ( , Php 3:16). This result is not achieved at once, but by degrees (hence , become). The refers to the Apostles associates, as is evident from what immediately follows (Theophylact: ). [The associates are those whom the Apostle would have the Philippians to imitate, together with himself ( ); and the import of more naturally is=be ye all a company of imitators (Ellicott).H]. Hence it is not: una cum Paulo (Bengel), omnes uno consensu et una mente (Calvin), or superfluous (Heinrichs). Brethren, , indicates the fervor of the appeal.And mark them who walk so, ( ) associates others with Paul, who are models for the church, since they walk as he does.As ye have us for an ensample ( ) embraces Paul and those who walk like him. is thus neither Paul alone, especially as it stands after , while besides, we should have in that case , instead of , nor Paul and Timothy (Schenkel), nor Paul and all approved Christians (Matthies), nor ut ego meique socii (Van Hengel). The singular () is found not only where one is spoken of (1Ti 4:12; Tit 2:7), but also in regard to a plurality (1Th 1:7; 2Th 3:9). In 1Pe 5:3 occurs where several are meant. The singular here indicates that they all present the same image, belong to the same category. In lies unquestionably an argumentative force=in the measure (Meyer).
Php 3:18. The Apostle confirms his exhortation by two contrasts (Php 3:18-21).For many walk ( ), since there are many wicked persons who strive to lead others astray, consider us, not them. [They should heed his expostulations the more because there were so many () whom they could not safely imitate. The persons here meant are not the Judaizing teachers, but the anti-Roman reactionists. This view is borne out by the parallel expression, Rom 16:18 : , where the same persons seem to be intended; for they are described as creating divisions and offences (Rom 3:17), as holding plausible language (Rom 3:18), as professing to be wise beyond others (Rom 3:19), and yet not innocent in their wisdom: this last reproach being implied in the words , . They appear therefore to belong to the same party to which the passages Rom 6:1-23; Rom 14:1 to Rom 15:6, of that epistle are chiefly addressed. For the profession of wisdom in these faithless disciples of St. Paul, see 1Co 1:17 sqq.; 1Co 4:18 sqq.; 1Co 8:1 sqq.; 1Co 10:15 (Lightfoot). See the remarks on Php 3:18.H]. is not neutral here as in 1Pe 5:8, circulantur (Heinrichs), go about (Meyer). It could not stand absolutely after . Paul wishes to describe more closely the moral walk of those in question, but he is led away from the adverbial construction by the first relative clause, and proceeds in relative clauses to speak of the end, motive, and character of this walk. Hence neither (cumen.) nor longe aliter (Grotius), is to be supplied, nor is the concluding limitation ( ) to be joined with the verb to relieve the difficulty (Calvin); nor are we to assume that since in itself needs no qualifying term, the sentence proceeds with entire correctness with the subjoined limitations of the subject (Meyer). Those, whose example the Philippians should shun () are according to the entire description members of the church, not false teachers, as in Php 3:2; at the most they are those who, led astray by such teachers, have become in turn corrupters of others.Of whom I told you often, but now tell you even weeping, ( , .) [The imperf. shows the habit=was accustomed to speak of. This is an instance of Pauls repeating in his letter what he had said in person when he was among the Philippians. See the remarks on Php 3:1. The Apostle in this passage, refers evidently to his former warnings, when he was at Philippi.H]. To understand the remark of passages in the letter itself (Php 3:2; Php 1:15), is untenable; for these here are different persons from those referred to in the passages mentioned. To corresponds . Why he now weeping repeats that which he had formerly said without tears, is well explained by Chrysostom, . [The evil in the meantime had become more serious.H]. He writes with deeper emotion, with streaming eyes.That they are the enemies of the cross of Christ ( ) we are to join with . [On this construction see Winers Gram., p. 530.H]. Paul thus designates those to whom the cross is an offence or foolishness; formerly they may have been Jews or heathen, but now they are Christians, who wish to know nothing of the fellowship of Christs sufferings, ( , Php 3:10), to whom the sufferings of Christ ( , 2Co 1:5) are offensive, who are not willing to suffer with Him, (, Rom 8:17), nor allow the world to be crucified to them and themselves to the world (Gal 6:14), nor crucify their flesh together with its lusts and desires (Gal 5:24). The Apostle is speaking of immorality of life, ethical errors, while Php 3:19 ( ) indicates an Epicurean, careless life (, Chrysostom). No reference is made to their doctrine of the cross (Theodoret); or even to theoretical errors, or intellectual misconceptions. The reference is not to those who are not Christians (Rilliet) or hostes evangelii (Calvin).
Php 3:19. Whose end is destruction ( ) is first mentioned. Hoc ponitur ante alia, quo majore cum horrore hs legantur; in fine videbitur. Finis, ad quem cujusvis rationes tendunt, ostendit sane, qu sit ejus conditio (Bengel). , the opposite of (Php 1:26) is passive. Bengel incorrectly regards salvator as the equivalent term, and Heinrichs takes the meaning to be: their end is to destroy Christianity. The end is described by (2Co 11:12-15) as their own peculiar, appointed end.Whose God is their belly, ( ). The belly is termed their God, as being their highest concern, the master whom they serve (Rom 16:18). from , cavus, is venter (Mat 15:17; Mar 7:19; Luk 15:16) uterus (Luk 1:41; Luk 1:44; Luk 2:21; Joh 3:4; Mat 19:12), and also intirma hominis (Joh 7:38). It embraces here the organs of sensual desire and of gluttony, not excluding licentiousness, nor referring exclusively to it: so that this passage comprehends more than 1Co 15:32.And whose glory is in their shame ( ). takes the place of . signifies the honor and glory which belong peculiarly to them; that which they conceive to be glory, but which is actually and truly their shame, and will in the end prove to be such. Bengel well remarks: Deus et gloria ponuntur ut parallela. Sic venter et pudor sunt affinia. Id colunt isti, cujus ipsos maxime pudere debebat et suo tempore pudebit misere. But there is no reference to circumcision, the genitals (Bengel, et al.) It is not intimated that they have perverted Christian truth to palliate their moral laxity (Wiesinger).Who mind earthly things. The individualizing article introduces the comprehensive characteristic: . The nominative is the logical subject (Meyer), and it is not vocative (Winers Gram., p. 183).
Php 3:20. For our citizenship is in heaven ( ). The confirmatory sentence () points back like Php 3:18-19, to Php 3:17, and states why the Philippians should look to Paul and to those who walk as he does ( as in Php 3:17 ). [Their souls are mundane and grovelling. They have no fellowship with us; for we are citizens of a heavenly commonwealth. The emphatic position of contrasts the false adherents of St. Paul with the true (Lightfoot). On the state of the text see the notes.H.] , found only here, in the N. T., denotes according to its termination and its derivation (from Php 1:27) citizenship, commonwealth, the rank and rights of a citizen. Comp. , Act 22:28. True Christians have nothing to do with an earthly possession and existence simply, but are citizens of the heavenly ( ) Jerusalem (Gal 4:26; Rom 5:2; Rom 8:24; 2Th 2:8; Heb 12:22-23) even here. We are not to join with , as if the citizenship did not exist here at all, but to regard as descriptive of the character of the rather than the place. Hence this sentence does not confirm the conclusion of Php 3:19 (Winers Gram. p. 453, Meyer, et al.); for it is not pertinent to say for this very reason I warn you against them, since he does not warn but exhorts them. It does not confirm (Wiesinger), but (Php 3:17). Nor does it present the higher glory of the true Christian as the cause of his deep sorrow over the misconduct of the enemies of the cross (Schenkel), since is too subordinate a remark. Again, is not , walk, (Luther) nor does it refer to the Messiahs kingdom which has not yet appeared (Meyer), for it exists already even upon earth, and only waits for its completion.From whence also we look for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. , an adverbial expression, equivalent to unde (Vulg., Winers Gram., p. 141 sq.) refers to , not to (Bengel); but is not equivalent to ex quo (Erasmus), nor even to (Matthies). before indicates that He is looked for (, an awaiting, ad finem usque, perseveranter exspectare, Rom 8:19; Rom 8:23; Rom 8:25; 1Co 1:7; Gal 5:5) not merely as in their , in contrast with the of the enemies of the cross, but also as a Saviour, in contrast with their destruction (). Comp. Luk 18:7-8; Luk 21:28. points neither to a relation corresponding to what has been said of their citizenship (Meyer), nor to conduct (Wiesinger), which does not agree with .
Php 3:21. Who will transform the body of our humiliation ( ) explains how the Lord will manifest Himself as . The reference is to a future transformation which relates to the or fashion of the body (Php 2:8; 2Co 11:13-14; 1Co 4:6); and not to its identity. Hence Paul does not speak of the body alone as the object of the change ( ) but adds the genitive of characterization (Winers Gram., p. 187 sq.), namely, , as in Col 1:22 : ; Rom 6:8; ; Rom 7:24; . Chrysostom well observes: , , , . But we must also include here the carnal, the sinful in mans nature; for it is that especially which makes up the . Not merely the body, but we ourselves (note the ) suffer these things, which constitute this humiliation, that cleaves to the body. The object or result of the transformation is now stated,That it may be fashioned like unto the body of his glory, . The breviloquence (or adj., instead of a sentence) is like 1Th 3:13; Mat 12:13. See Winers Gram., p. 624 sq. Out of this arose the variation noted in the critical remarks. The body is now no longer , but has become , and as that was ours () so this is his (). The body comes forth from our present humiliation, and becomes a participant in the glory of Him who has transformed it. This is to be effected by the change which makes it like, conformed to, the body of His glory; hence through a transformation into His image (Rom 8:29), which begins even here (2Co 3:18 : ). [The body is that which exhibits His glory not merely because He has it in His glorified state, but because His glory in that state so pre-eminently appears in the spiritual body with which He is there clothed, and which stands forth as the type of the spiritual body into which every one of His true followers will be transformed.H.] Hlemann joins with , with . Hammond explains as the church; Luther supposes only the weakness and frailty of the body to be meant, Meyer, the change which first begins at the time of Christs second advent. All of these views are more or less faulty. He has the power necessary to produce such a transformation.According to the working whereby he is able also to subdue all things unto himself. On , see Eph 1:19, where is added, while here we have . Since all things are and must be subject to Him, He can also () transform the (body ); for the connects that verb with . It is an argumentum a majori ( ) ad minus (). Comp. 1Co 15:25-28; 1Co 15:56-57. It is incorrect for Hlemann to connect and by , as if Paul would say that He is able to do all things and subject all things to Himself. [ is stronger with the article: not only this, but all the things together which require infinite power (comp. Php 3:8).H.]
Php 4:1. Therefore () introduces the conclusion, as in Php 2:12. The section extends from Php 3:1 to Php 4:1, not merely from Php 3:17 to Php 3:21 (Meyer); for points back to . [So extended a reference of is uncommon and not necessary here. In view of the glorious destiny which awaits those whose citizenship is above, they should persevere and not frustrate such a hope (Php 4:20-21). Comp. 1Co 15:58.H.]My brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, is an expression of his love and recognition of them. indicates the relation of fellow-believers with respect to the personal fellowship, which not only renders the Philippians an object of special love (), but also of earnest longing ( ; comp. Php 1:8). [The Apostles separation from them was so painful because his affection for them was so strong.H.] marks the personal, the official relation: they are the joy of his heart and the honor of his office (Schenkel). The first expression refers to the present, the second reaches onward into the future. [The among the Greeks was the emblem of victory, and not of regal power or dignity, which was denoted by . On this distinction see Smiths Dictionary of the Bible, vol. i. p. 597 (Amer. ed.) Hence his converts will be his wreath of victory; for it will appear that he did not run in vain, (Php 2:26), and he will receive the successful athletes reward. Comp. 1Co 9:25 (Lightfoot).H.]So stand fast in the Lord ( ); i.e., as I and those who walk with me stand (Php 3:17) and as I have exhorted you (Php 3:1 sq.) Comp. Php 1:27. Bengel, incorrectly, ita, ut statis, state [which disagrees with Php 2:17.H.].Beloved () thus repeated shows his ardent affection for them.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The instinct of imitation gives force to the power of example; and the Apostle here does not present merely his own apostolic character, but joins with himself those who walk with him.Sympathy and community of feeling render specially effective an example which embodies ethical views and principles. Hence precisely in the section where the citizenship of Christians in heaven is brought forward, this appeal is specially appropriate. Manifold as may be the forms of life in individuals, they are yet features of one image; they harmonize with each other, are not discordant; the many reflect one type (). The power and frequency of evil example (1Co 15:33) make it the more necessary to regard the Apostles exhortation.
2. Enmity to the cross of Christ, which takes offence at Christs form as a sufferer, and His path of suffering wherein His followers ought to walk, has its ground not exclusively indeed, but to a great extent, in a sensual character, subject to the lust of the world, by which many are governed even in the church. From an occasional, easy, and subtle service of the senses it may come to be uninterrupted and overbearing. Gentleness towards the natural man is cruelty towards the spiritual. Forbearance towards sensual desire ends in the loss of eternal glory, and that which passes current under the forms of conventional propriety, is in truth often a shame and disgrace.
3. The stand-point in the Christian life which fixes the eye on the future, the familiarity with God which maintains a close connection with the church, militant on earth but triumphant in heaven, and does not suffer the child of God to forget his eternal inheritance, affords the surest protection against evil example, and gives to good example its strongest attractive power.
4. [Neander:The earthly mind Paul would say (Php 4:19-21) must be far from us, who are Christians; for our conversation, (more correctly citizenship) is in heaven. His meaning is, that Christians, as to their life, their walk, belong even now to heaven; in the whole direction of their life existing there already.This he deduces from their relation to Christ, their fellowship with Him to whom they are inseparably united, so that where He is there are they also. While here, they are sustained by the consciousness that Christ now lives in heaven, manifested to believers, though hidden from the world. Thither is their gaze directed, as their longings rise towards a Saviour, who will come again from thence to make them wholly like Himself, to fashion them wholly after His own glorious pattern, to transform them wholly into the heavenly. Hence Paul says: From whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change the body of our humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. There is not presented here a resurrection, as a restoration merely of the same earthly body in the same earthly form; but, on the contrary, a glorious transformation, proceeding from the divine, the all-subduing power of Christ; so that believers, free from all the defects of the earthly existence, released from all its barriers, may reflect the full image of the heavenly Christ in their whole glorified personality, in the soul pervaded by the divine life and its now perfectly assimilated glorified organ.H.]
5. [Chr. Wordsworth:Christ, at His own transfiguration, gave a pledge and glimpse of the future glorious transformation of the risen body, and thus prepared the apostles to suffer with Him on earth, in order that they may be glorified forever with Him, in body and soul, in heaven (N. T. Commentary, vol. 2. p. 357).H.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
In lack of faith is found the cause of lack of joy.There is no true renewal without humbly going to the cross of Christ. The bodies of many who profess to be renewed, are temples of the god of the belly and of his servants to whom Christs cross is so entirely an offence, that they are even its enemies.He who does not see the Easter sun rising behind the cross on Golgotha is no true Christian, does not cling fast to the good example of the apostles, and the faithful in the church, and becomes himself an evil example which may frighten away and even destroy others.
Starke:Not all who point out the way to heaven will themselves be received into it. Many helped to build the ark of Noah who did not enter it.Thou rejoicest when thou canst lay off an old garment and put on a new one: why art thou troubled because thy body shall experience corruption? By this means it lays aside not only what is worthless but attains to a glorious transformation (Php 3:21).
Rieger:Our house, home, city, and fatherland where we belong, the seeking and hoping for which govern all our thoughts, are not mere fancies to be grasped only by the imagination, but exist in heaven; God has prepared them there; and faith in His word affords us a complete representation of them.
Gerlach:Every one who is not redeemed by Christs cross from sin and from the present evil world, serves his flesh and minds earthly things, though his imagination take ever so exalted flights, though he be a philosopher, or a slave to grovelling lusts.No Christian can find perfect rest until even the last trace of sin is overcome and destroyed: hence his life upon earth is a life of waiting and longing.
Schleiermacher:If a man still values and seeks sensual good he is then an enemy of the cross of Christ. If he has earthly honor in view, and desires to distinguish himself before the world, he is then an enemy of the shame of Christ which accompanied His sufferings.Eternal life is not to be thought of apart from a mans reconciliation with himself and with Christ, who has left peace as His most beautiful legacy to His followers.
Heubner:They who will not recognize the crucified Redeemer as their only righteousness, who are proud of their legal virtue, are as much enemies of the cross of Christ as those who from a fleshly mind will not follow the crucified Redeemer, nor crucify their flesh together with its lusts and desires.Pride and the lust of the world can make a man an enemy of the cross of Christ.The holiest thing may become an offence to a corrupt heart, and excite violent opposition.Even evil examples must be salutary to the Christian, because they deter him from evil: they present it to him in all its fearfulness and render him anxious for himself.The man who opposes the cross of Christ, labors for his own ruin.That which is honorable with God, the worldly man does not understand at all.The present body disturbs the heavenly life; and hence this body is to be glorified. The future body will promote, facilitate the spiritual life. We are to attain to a complete likeness to Christ, even the body is to become like His; but as the condition of this the soul here must first resemble His soul. The power of Christ extends to the new creation of our bodies and of the world.-Though difficult, the Christian may guard himself against the destructive influence of evil examples. 1) He has no lack of good examples around him; 2) He sees the fearfulness of evil examples; 3) He has a heavenly calling.There is a Christian use of bad examples as well as good.
Passavant:This is the three-fold divine working of the one Redeemer; He has redeemed His people from the curse of sin through His blood; He redeems them more and more by His Holy Spirit from the power of sin, and He will finally redeem them from all misery and all oppression in this evil, godless world, and bring them to His heavenly kingdom.
[Neander:Each one is required to apply to his own life the measure of spiritual discernment bestowed upon him (Php 3:16).All progressive revelation of the Spirit, all new light of which man is made partaker, presupposes a faithful application of what has previously been given (Php 3:15).If each one were careful to put in practice with strict fidelity his own measure of Christian knowledge, without contending with others about matters wherein they differ from himself, how many schisms might have been avoided in the church, how many differences might for its interest have been, overcome and adjusted!H.]
Footnotes:
[8]Php 3:20. [The here has the support of all the oldest manuscripts, though the passage is cited by many early writers, as if was the connective.H].
[9]Php 3:21. Before some codices insert manifestly an interpretation.
[10]Ibid. A B et al. have . A few copies read [adopted in the received text.H].
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
DISCOURSE: 2156
OF FOLLOWING GOOD EXAMPLES
Php 3:17; Php 3:20. Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample.For our conversation is in heaven.
GREAT is the force of example, either to vitiate or improve the morals of those around us. There are few, even of real Christians, who do not, in some considerable degree, yield to its influence. The church at Philippi was, on the whole, distinguished for its attainments: yet even there, hypocrisy was found, and error had its advocates. The example of some worldly and sensual professors was likely to prove extremely injurious: while therefore the Apostle declares his grief occasioned by their misconduct, he exhorts the Church to unite in following rather the example that he had set them, and to notice with approbation all who conducted themselves agreeably to his advice.
The words that are in verses 18 and 19, being included in a parenthesis, those which are united in the text are properly connected with each other. In discoursing on them, we shall consider,
1.
The Apostles example
St. Paul considered himself as a citizen of heaven [Note: might have been translated our citizenship.]
[To be a citizen of Rome was deemed a high honour; and it was an honour which Paul possessed by virtue of his being a native of Tarsus, on which city this privilege had been conferred [Note: Act 22:28.]. But Pauls name was enrolled in a more glorious city, even in heaven itself [Note: Luk 10:20.]. He belonged to the society of saints and angels, who were united under Christ, their common head [Note: Eph 1:10; Eph 3:15.]: and he had a communion with them in all their honours, their interests, and their enjoyments [Note: Eph 2:6.].]
In the exercise of his rights, he had his daily converse in heaven
[As a person is daily conversant with that society to which he belongs, maintaining fellowship with them, and ordering his life according to their rules, so the Apostle lived, as it were, in heaven: his thoughts and affections were there continually: and he was emulating those around the throne by his constant endeavours to glorify God, and by walking habitually in the light of his countenance.]
While he mentions his example, he shews us,
II.
The use that we should make of it
We should imitate him ourselves
[We are already joined to the society in heaven [Note: Heb 12:22-23.], provided we be united unto Christ by faith: and it behoves us to walk worthy of our high calling. Though we are in the world, we are not to be of it. We have here no continuing city: we are to be in this world as pilgrims only and so-journers: we must ever consider ourselves as strangers and foreigners, who, though living on earth are indeed fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God [Note: Eph 2:19.]. If we were travelling in a foreign land, we should regard the concerns of that land rather as objects of curiosity, than as matters in which we felt any deep interest: whereas the affairs of our own country, where our estates were situated, and our relations lived, would be regarded by us as matters of great moment. Thus should we be indifferent, as it were, to all the vanities of this life, and be wholly intent on our spiritual and eternal interests. We should be maintaining communion with our Head in heaven [Note: 1Jn 1:3.], and growing up into a meetness for the exercises and enjoyments of the invisible world.]
We should also mark those who do imitate him
[All of us should unite [Note: .] in following his example, and emulate each other in his holy employment. And, when any make higher attainments than ourselves we should not be ashamed to imitate them: we should observe [Note: .] particularly what it is wherein they excel us, and how it is that they have been enabled to outstrip us. We should endeavour to encourage them; and together with them to press forward towards perfection [Note: Pro 15:24.].]
We may make use of this subject,
1.
For reproof
[How widely do the greater part of Christians differ from the Apostle! Nor is it only the profane, or the formal, that are condemned by his example, but even the godly also. Let all of us then be ashamed of the low sense we entertain of our privileges, and of the coldness with which we prosecute our eternal interests. Let us seek to have our views and dispositions more conformed to those of the saints of old; that at the second coming of our Lord we may behold him both with confidence and joy [Note: ver. 20, 21. with 1Jn 2:28.].]
2.
For encouragement
[It is not to Apostles that these attainments are confined: they were common to many others in the Church at Philippi, who, together with the Apostle, are proposed as patterns unto us. Let none then imagine that this blessed state is beyond their reach; but rather let all aspire after it, as the one object of their ambition [Note: ver. 13, 14.]. Let all seek to know what a gloriously rich inheritance [Note: Eph 1:18.] they are even now permitted to enjoy; and, having by faith gained access into this grace, let them stand in it, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God [Note: Rom 5:2.].]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
(17) Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample. (18) (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: (19) Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.) (20) For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: (21) Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.
We have a very awful account of the many, whom the Apostle here describes, as enemies to the cross of Christ. He could not mean the openly profane, neither the openly despisers of Christ; for in the case of either, distressing as the view is, Paul needed not to have cautioned the Church against them. It appears very plainly, that as their sin is marked by the Apostle as against the cross of Christ; it was the doctrine of redemption solely by Christ; blood and righteousness, against which their enmity was shown. And well might Paul weep, in beholding such characters. Their end, he said, was destruction. Carnal confidence, naturally producing such an end. And what possible hope can there be of salvation, where the only means of obtaining it is rejected?
Reader! observe, how sweetly the Apostle relieves the minds of the Church, in reminding them of their confidence in Jesus. Our conversation (saith he) is in heaven. Not only a citizenship there; but their affections already gone before, to take possession, and to carry on correspondence with the inhabitants. We live below. But we breathe the atmosphere above. And He, who is the Lord of the country, even our dear Lord Jesus Christ, we are always on the look-out for, who is shortly expected to come, to take us to himself; that where he is, there we may be also.
And, what I yet more particularly beg the Reader to observe, Paul saith, that when he comes, he will change the vile bodies of his people, that they may be fashioned like unto his glorious body. By which, it should seem, the Apostle meant, that the saints of God, which are alive in the body, at Christ’s coming, shall be instantly changed, without passing by death through the grave. While those that are asleep in Jesus, shall be also raised by the same Almighty power, from the dust, with glorified bodies. And this vast change, in both instances, is the special, and personal privilege, of Christ’s redeemed ones, from their union with him. Not so the Christless dead. Jesus solemnly declares, how they are to be risen: Joh 5:28-29 . And the Holy Ghost as sweetly speaks, how the dead in Christ shall arise, by the Spirit dwelling in them. Rom 8:11 ; Rev 14:13 .
And Reader, suffer me, on this most interesting subject to add one word more. When God the Holy Ghost, in this scripture, by his servant the Apostle, saith, that Christ shall change our vile bodies; and this is said of the saints of God; nothing can be more evident, than that the bodies of regenerated believers, notwithstanding the holiness of the spirit, in being born again, whether in the grave, or alive, at the coming of Christ, are not changed by grace. If they were changed, they could not be said to be vile. If a perfection in part, even in the smallest part on the body, had taken place, at the regeneration of the spirit; that part, even in the thousandth degree, could no longer be said to be vile: neither could it be capable, as we see, and know it is, in every instance of corruption. Act 13:36-37 . I conceive this to be so important a point of doctrine, and involves in it so many interesting consequences, that I pray the Reader not to pass away from it too hastily. It certainly is not very generally, if at all, attended to, or considered. The commonly received opinion, even by the godly, on this point is, that at regeneration, we are sanctified in part, both in body, and spirit. Whereas, if, as Paul saith here, Christ at his coming, will change our vile bodies; most certain it is, that no change whatever is made on the body at the new-birth, but the vast work is on the spirit only. And this is most plainly the case. The spirit at regeneration, is made as holy as it ever will be, being made a partaker of the divine nature; and having had given unto it, all things that pertain to life and godliness. 2Pe 1:3-4 . And the body remains the same, unchanged by grace, but vile, and full of sin. And hence, when it drops to its original dust, it is expressly said to be sown in corruption, to be sown in weakness, to be sown a natural body. And hence, as Christ will change the vile bodies of his saints, which are alive at his coming: so, by his resurrection, he will raise up the bodies of his saints, which sleep in the dust, and which were sown in corruption. Jesus will raise them in incorruption, that they may be all fashioned like to his glorious body, whereby he is able, even to subdue all things unto himself. Oh precious Jesus! thou who art the resurrection and the life! May my flesh rest in hope of this assured blessedness!
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
17 Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample.
Ver. 17. Be followers together of me ] Longum iter per praecepta, brevius per exempla. Everything in a minister should be exemplary, . We must propound to ourselves the highest pitch and the best patterns of perfection; even those of most raised parts and graces, of unwearied industry in services, and undaunted magnanimity in suffering; follow the most forward Christians with a desire to overtake them; dwell upon their exemplary lives till ye be changed into the same image.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
17 4:1 .] Exhortation to follow his example (17): warning against the enemies of the cross of Christ (18, 19): declaration of the high privileges and hopes of Christians (20, 21), and affectionate entreaty to stedfastness ( Php 4:1 ). Be imitators together (i.e. with one another: so, and not imitators together with those mentioned below (Mey., Wies.), must the word here be rendered. The latter would be allowable as far as the word is concerned, but the form of the sentence determines for the other. forms a complete clause, in which has the place of emphasis, and in the preposition: it is therefore unallowable to pass on the sense of the . to another clause from which it is separated by and another verb. So that instead of . . . being a reason for this meaning, it is in fact a reason against it) of me, and observe (for imitation: , Xen. Symp. iv. 42) those who walk in such manner as ye have an example in us . The construction is much controverted. Meyer and Wiesinger would separate and observe those who thus walk (i.e. as implied above); as ye have (emphatic ye are not in want of) an example in us (viz. Paul and those who thus walk). My objection to this is, that if and are to be independent the three verbs , , , being thus thrown into three independent clauses, will be all correlative, and the will not apply to , but to the foregoing verbs, thus stultifying the sentence: “ Be &c., and observe &c., as ye have an example (viz. of being and of ) in us .” Besides which, the would he (1) very vague as referring back to what went before , seeing that no has been specified, whereas (2) it is directly related to what follows , by the of Phi 3:18 . I therefore retain the usuul rendering. Meyer’s objections to it are, (1) that it is , not : but this does not affect the matter: for, the example including in its reference the and the Philippians, the 2nd person would be more naturally used, the 3rd making a separation which would not be desirable: (2) that it is , not : but granting that this does not apply to Paul alone, it certainly cannot, as Mey., be meant to include the . . with him, which would be a way of speaking unprecedented in his writings, but must apply to himself and his fellow-workers, Timotheus, Epaphroditus, &c. Of course the is no objection (as De W.) to the proper plural sense of , for it is used of that wherein they were all united in one category, as in (Plato), (sch.): see Khner, ii. 27.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Phi 3:17-19 . A SOLEMN WARNING AGAINST THE EARTHLY, SENSUAL MIND.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Phi 3:17 . . The compound is significant. Uno consensu et una mente (Calv.). This emphasis on their unity justifies the interpretation of favoured above. Paul is compelled to make his own example a norm of the new life. It was not as in Judaism where the Law lay ready to hand as a fixed standard. There was, as yet, no tradition of the Christian life. . A keen, close scrutiny. Cf. Rom 16:17 (but there = “mark so as to avoid”). probably points back to . It seems more natural to give its common argumentative force, “even as”. = (1) “stamp” of a die, (2) “copy, figure,” as the stamp bears a figure on the face of the die, (3) “mould, pattern,” by transference from the effect to the cause. Wetst. quotes Diod. Sic, Ex. (?), . See also Radford, Expositor , v., 6, p. 380 ff.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Philippians
WARNINGS AND HOPES
Php 3:17-21 R.V..
There is a remarkable contrast in tone between the sad warnings which begin this section and the glowing hopes with which it closes, and that contrast is made the more striking when we notice that the Apostle binds the gloom of the one and the radiance of the other by ‘For,’ which makes the latter the cause of the former.
The exhortation in which the Apostle begins by proposing himself as an example sounds strange on any lips, and, most of all, on his, but we have to note that the points in which he sets himself up as a pattern are obviously those on which he touched in the preceding outpouring of his heart, and which he has already commended to the Philippians in pleading with them to be ‘thus minded.’ What he desires them to copy is his self-distrust, his willingness to sacrifice all things to win Christ, his clear sense of his own shortcomings, and his eager straining towards as yet unreached perfection. His humility is not disproved by such words, but what is remarkable in them is the clear consciousness of the main direction and set of his life. We may well hesitate to take them for ours, but every Christian man and woman ought to be able to say this much. If we cannot in some degree declare that we are so walking, we have need to look to our foundations. Such words are really in sharp contrast to those in which Jesus is held forth as an example. Notice, too, how quickly he passes to associate others with him, and to merge the ‘Me’ into ‘Us.’ We need not ask who his companions were, since Timothy is associated with him at the beginning of the letter.
The exhortation is enforced by pointing to others who had gone far astray, and of whom he had warned the Philippians often, possibly by letter. Who these unworthy disciples were remains obscure. They were clearly not the Judaisers branded in verse 2, who were teachers seeking to draw away the Philippians, while these others seem to have been ‘enemies of the Cross of Christ,’ not by open hostility nor by theoretical errors, but by practical worldliness, and that in these ways; they make sense their God, they are proud of what is really their disgrace, namely, they are shaking off the restraints of morality; and, most black though it may seem least so, they ‘mind earthly things’ on which thought, feeling, and interest are concentrated. Let us lay to heart the lesson that such direction of the current of a life to the things of earth makes men ‘enemies of the Cross of Christ,’ whatever their professions, and will surely make their end perdition, whatever their apparent prosperity. Paul’s life seemed loss and was gain; these men’s lives seemed gain and was loss.
From this dark picture charged with gloom, and in one corner showing white waves breaking far out against an inky sky, and a vessel with torn sails driving on the rocks, the Apostle turns with relief to the brighter words in which he sets forth the true affinities and hopes of a Christian. They all stand or fall with the belief in the Resurrection of Christ and His present life in His glorified corporeal manhood.
I. Our true metropolis.
The Revised Version puts in the margin as an alternative rendering for ‘citizenship’ commonwealth, and there appears to be a renewed allusion here to the fact already noted that Philippi was a ‘colony,’ and that its inhabitants were Roman citizens. Paul uses a very emphatic word for ‘is’ here which it is difficult to reproduce in English, but which suggests essential reality.
The reason why that heavenly citizenship is ours in no mere play of the imagination but in most solid substance, is because He is there for whom we look. Where Christ is, is our Mother-country, our Fatherland, according to His own promise, ‘I go to prepare a place for you.’ His being there draws our thoughts and sets our affections on Heaven.
II. The colonists looking for the King.
The Emperors sometimes made a tour of the provinces. Paul here thinks of Christians as waiting for their Emperor to come across the seas to this outlying corner of His dominions. The whole grand name is given here, all the royal titles to express solemnity and dignity, and the character in which we look for Him is that of Saviour. We still need salvation, and though in one sense it is past, in another it will not be ours until He comes the second time without sin unto salvation. The eagerness of the waiting which should characterise the expectant citizens is wonderfully described by the Apostle’s expression for it, which literally means to look away out–with emphasis on both prepositions–like a sentry on the walls of a besieged city whose eyes are ever fixed on the pass amongst the hills through which the relieving forces are to come.
It may be said that Paul is here expressing an expectation which was disappointed. No doubt the early Church looked for the speedy return of our Lord and were mistaken. We are distinctly told that in that point there was no revelation of the future, and no doubt they, like the prophets of old, ‘searched what manner of time the spirit of Christ which was in them did signify.’ In this very letter Paul speaks of death as very probable for himself, so that he had precisely the same double attitude which has been the Church’s ever since, in that he looked for Christ’s coming as possible in his own time, and yet anticipated the other alternative. It is difficult, no doubt, to cherish the vivid anticipation of any future event, and not to have any certainty as to its date. But if we are sure that a given event will come sometime and do not know when it may come, surely the wise man is he who thinks to himself it may come any time, and not he who treats it as if it would come at no time. The two possible alternatives which Paul had before him have in common the same certainty as to the fact and uncertainty as to the date, and Paul had them both before his mind with the same vivid anticipation.
The practical effect of this hope of the returning Lord on our ‘walk’ will be all to bring it nearer Paul’s. It will not suffer us to make sense our God, nor to fix our affections on things above; it will stimulate all energies in pressing towards the goal, and will turn away our eyes from the trivialities and transiencies that press upon us, away out toward the distance where ‘far off His coming shone.’
III. The Christian sharing in Christ’s glory.
The same precise distinction between ‘fashion’ and ‘form,’ which we have had occasion to notice in Chapter II., recurs here. The ‘fashion’ of the body of our humiliation is external and transient; the ‘form’ of the body of His glory to which we are to be assimilated consists of essential characteristics or properties, and may be regarded as being almost synonymous with ‘Nature.’ Observing the distinction which the Apostle draws by the use of these two words, and remembering their force in the former instance of their occurrence, we shall not fail to give force to the representation that in the Resurrection the fleeting fashion of the bodily frame will be altered, and the glorified bodies of the saints made participant of the essential qualities of His.
We further note that there is no trace of false asceticism or of gnostic contempt for the body in its designation as ‘of our humiliation.’ Its weaknesses, its limitations, its necessities, its corruption and its death, sufficiently manifest our lowliness, while, on the other hand, the body in which Christ’s glory is manifested, and which is the instrument for His glory, is presented in fullest contrast to it.
The great truth of Christ’s continual glorified manhood is the first which we draw from these words. The story of our Lord’s Resurrection suggests indeed that He brought the same body from the tomb as loving hands had laid there. The invitation to Thomas to thrust his hands into the prints of the nails, the similar invitation to the assembled disciples, and His partaking of food in their presence, seemed to forbid the idea of His rising changed. Nor can we suppose that the body of His glory would be congruous with His presence on earth. But we have to think of His ascension as gradual, and of Himself as ‘changed by still degrees’ as He ascended, and so as returned to where the ‘glory which He had with the Father before the world was,’ as the Shechinah cloud received Him out of the sight of the gazers below. If this be the true reading of His last moments on earth, He united in His own experience both the ways of leaving it which His followers experience–the way of sleep which is death, and the way of ‘being changed.’
But at whatever point the change came, He now wears, and for ever will wear, the body of a man. That is the dominant fact on which is built the Christian belief in a future life, and which gives to that belief all its solidity and force, and separates it from vague dreams of immortality which are but a wish tremblingly turned into a hope, or a dread shudderingly turned into an expectation. The man Christ Jesus is the pattern and realised ideal of human life on earth, the revelation of the divine life through a human life, and in His glorified humanity is no less the pattern and realised ideal of what human nature may become. The present state of the departed is incomplete in that they have not a body by which they can act on, and be acted on by, an external universe. We cannot indeed suppose them lapped in age-long unconsciousness, and it may be that the ‘dead in Christ’ are through Him brought into some knowledge of externals, but for the full-summed perfection of their being, the souls under the altar have to wait for the resurrection of the body. If resurrection is needful for completion of manhood, then completed manhood must necessarily be set in a locality, and the glorified manhood of Jesus must also now be in a place. To think thus of it and of Him is not to vulgarise the Christian conception of Heaven, but to give it a definiteness and force which it sorely lacks in popular thinking. Nor is the continual manhood of our Lord less precious in its influence in helping our familiar approach to Him. It tells us that He is still and for ever the same as when on earth, glad to welcome all who came and to help and heal all who need Him. It is one of ourselves who ‘sitteth at the right hand of God.’ His manhood brings Him memories which bind Him to us sorrowing and struggling, and His glory clothes Him with power to meet all our needs, to stanch all our wounds, to satisfy all our desires.
Our text leads us to think of the wondrous transformation into Christ’s likeness. We know not what are the differences between the body of our humiliation and the body of His glory, but we must not be led away by the word Resurrection to fall into the mistake of supposing that in death we ‘sow that body which shall be.’ Paul’s great chapter in I. Corinthians should have destroyed that error for ever, and it is a singular instance of the persistency of the most unsupported mistakes that there are still thousands of people who in spite of all that they know of what befalls our mortal bodies, and of how their parts pass into other forms, still hold by that crude idea. We have no material by which to construct any, even the vaguest, outline of that body that shall be. We can only run out the contrasts as suggested by Paul in 1st Corinthians, and let the dazzling greatness of the positive thought which he gives in the text lift our expectations. Weakness will become power, corruption incorruption, liability to death immortality, dishonour glory, and the frame which belonged and corresponded to ‘that which was natural,’ shall be transformed into a body which is the organ of that which is spiritual. These things tell us little, but they may be all fused into the great light of likeness to the body of His glory; and though that tells us even less, it feeds hope more and satisfies our hearts even whilst it does not feed our curiosity. We may well be contented to acknowledge that ‘it doth not yet appear what we shall be,’ when we can go on to say, ‘We know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him.’ It is enough for the disciple that he be as his Master.
But we must not forget that the Apostle regards even this overwhelming change as but part of a mightier process, even the universal subjection of all things unto Christ Himself. The Emperor reduces the whole world to subjection, and the glorifying of the body as the climax of the universal subjugation represents it as the end of the process of assimilation begun in this mortal life. There is no possibility of a resurrection unto life unless that life has been begun before death. That ultimate glorious body is needed to bring men into correspondence with the external universe. As is the locality so is the body. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. This whole series of thoughts makes our glorious resurrection the result not of death, but of Christ’s living power on His people. It is only in the measure in which He lives in us and we in Him, and are partaking by daily participation in the power of His Resurrection, that we shall be made subjects of the working whereby He is able even to subject all things unto Himself, and finally be conformed to the body of His glory.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Php 3:17 to Php 4:1
17Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. 18For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, 19whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things. 20For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; 21who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself. Php 4:1 Therefore, my beloved brethren whom I long to see, my joy and crown, in this way stand firm in the Lord, my beloved.
Php 3:17 “Join in following my example” This verse has two present imperatives. Paul is encouraging them to follow him as he followed Christ (cf. Php 4:9; 1Co 4:16; 1Co 11:1; 1Th 1:6; 2Th 3:7; 2Th 3:9). This phrase is logically linked to Php 3:15-16. Notice how Paul’s example is expanded to include his missionary team and possibly Epaphroditus (“my”-“us”).
“Example” See Special Topic following.
SPECIAL TOPIC: FORM (TUPOS)
Php 3:18 “for many walk of whom I often told you” There were, and are, false teachers in the church. In this book they could be either Judaizers (cf. Php 3:2-16), as in the book of Galatians and Acts 15, or Gnostics (cf. 1Jn 2:18; 1Jn 2:22; 1Jn 4:1-6). The only way to protect oneself from error is to know, embrace, and live the truth! False teachers are sharp, logical, articulate, and attractive people. Trust the Son; follow the Book; yield to the Spirit!
“even weeping” This is a term for intense grief (cf. Mat 2:18; Mat 26:75; Mar 5:38-39; Joh 11:31; Jas 4:9; Jas 5:1). Paul took no joy in others who were in moral or theological error.
“enemies of the cross of Christ” There is uncertainty about the identity of these “enemies of the cross.” The phrases used by Paul are so intense they seem to refer to the unbelieving false teachers of Php 3:2-16. The sins listed in Php 3:19 do not fit legalistic Jews, but Greek antinomian false teachers or possibly Christian converts who have reverted to former pagan lifestyles (cf. Col 2:16-23; 2Pe 2:20-22). The context favors the last option. But, if so, the contrast of Php 3:20 implies that Paul thought they were not truly saved (cf. Mat 7:13; 1Jn 2:19; 2Pe 2:1-22; Rev 2:4-5; Rev 2:10-11; Rev 2:16-17; Rev 2:25-26; Rev 3:2; Rev 3:5; Rev 3:11; Rev 3:21).
Be careful that your systematic (denominational, experiential, cultural) theology does not interpret this text. Literary context and the original author’s intent must be the major criteria. The NT is not a systematic presentation of truth but an eastern, paradoxical genre. The NT regularly presents truths in seemingly contradictory pairs (paradox). The Christian life is a tension- filled life of assurance and hope as well as responsibility and warning! Salvation is not a product but a new life!
Php 3:19
NASB, NKJV,
NRSV”whose end is destruction”
TEV”they are going to end up in hell”
NJB”they are destined to be lost”
These were sincere, informed, religious people. Paul uses this term apleia to describe God’s ultimate judgment (cf. Php 1:28; Rom 9:22; 2Th 2:3; 1Ti 6:9). However, in the Gospels it must be admitted that it was used in the sense of “wasted” (cf. Mat 26:8; Mar 14:4). Therefore, it is impossible to know to whom Paul is referring (believers or nonbelievers).
NASB”whose god is their appetite”
NKJV, NRSV”whose god is their belly”
TEV”because their god is their bodily desires”
NJB”their god is their stomach”
This shows their tendency toward (1) antinomian practices or (2) gluttony and materialism. This sounds more like Greek false teachers (cf. Rom 16:17-18) than Jewish legalists (cf. Php 3:2-6). TEV may have captured the metaphorical meaning,”because their god is their bodily desires.”
“whose glory is in their shame” This could refer to
1. the Judaizers’ emphasis on circumcision or Jewish pride
2. the Gnostics’ emphasis on knowledge
3. the Libertines’ immoral lifestyle
These false teachers were proud of the very things for which they should have been ashamed! The false teachers of the NT are often characterized by financial and/or sexual exploitation.
“who set their minds on earthly things” This shows the origin of much of humanity’s religiosity (cf. Isa 29:13; Col 2:16-23; Col 3:1-2).
Php 3:20
NASB, NKJV”For our citizenship is in heaven”
NRSV”But our citizenship is in heaven”
TEV”We, however, are citizens of heaven”
NJB”But our homeland is in heaven”
This verse is a contrast to Php 3:18-19. The pronoun “our” is emphatic. “Heaven” is plural (cf. 2Co 12:2; Eph 4:10; Heb 4:14; Heb 7:26) following the Hebrew usage (shamayim). Possibly Paul was using the Roman colonial status of this city as an illustration (cf. Php 1:27).
“we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” Paul often uses this term “eagerly wait” in relation to the Second Coming (cf. Rom 8:19; Rom 8:23; Rom 8:25; 1Co 1:7; Gal 5:5; Heb 9:28). Believers’ desire for the Second Coming is one evidence of their relationship with Christ and an impetus for Christlike living (cf. Rom 8:19; Rom 8:23; 1Co 1:7).
Paul’s emphasis on the Lord’s return is recurrent, but his understanding of the time element is ambiguous. There are several passages in which Paul includes himself in the group who would be alive at the Second Coming (cf. 1Co 15:51-52; 2 Corinthians 5; Php 3:20; 1Th 4:15; 1Th 4:17). However, there are other passages where he asserts a future return beyond his own lifetime (cf. 1Co 6:14; 2Co 4:14 and especially 2 Thessalonians). It is possible that the “we” of the first group of texts is literary, or that Paul’s views on this subject developed. It is difficult to suppose that an inspired author “developed” his theology. A better approach is to assert a dialectical model. Paul, like all NT writers, asserted the certainty and “soon-ness” of the Second Coming. Believers are to live in light of the any-moment return of the Lord! However, Jesus (Matthew 24) and Paul (2 Thessalonians 2) spoke of historical events that must occur before the Second Coming. Both are somehow true! The return of Jesus is a motivating hope of every generation of believers but the reality of only one generation!
This is one of two times Paul calls Jesus “Savior” (cf. Eph 5:23) before the Pastoral Letters (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus), in which he uses the title ten times. This term came to be a title for the Roman Emperor. In Titus there is a parallel in the use of this term between God the Father and Jesus the Son (cf. Php 1:3 vs. Php 1:4; Php 2:10 vs. Php 2:13; Php 3:4 vs. Php 3:6). The early Christians were willing to face death rather than relinquish this title to the Emperor. Both “Savior” and “Lord” were Imperial Roman titles used by Christians exclusively for Jesus.
Php 3:21 “who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory” Paul put a positive emphasis on believers’ bodily existence (cf. 2Co 5:1-10), both here and in heaven. This is referred to theologically as glorification (cf. Rom 8:30; 1Jn 3:2), when salvation will be consummated and fully realized. Our body of dust (cf. Psa 103:14) will be exchanged and remade (1Th 4:13-18) into a spiritual body like Jesus’ (cf. 1Co 15:45; 1Jn 3:2).
“He has even to subject all things to Himself” The resurrected Christ is Lord of all (cf. 1Co 15:24-28; Col 1:20).
Copyright 2013 Bible Lessons International
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
be. Literally become.
followers together. Lit fellow-imitators. Greek. summimetes, Only here.
mark. Greek. skopeo. See Luk 11:35.
ensample. Greek. typos, pattern.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
17-4:1.] Exhortation to follow his example (17): warning against the enemies of the cross of Christ (18, 19): declaration of the high privileges and hopes of Christians (20, 21), and affectionate entreaty to stedfastness (Php 4:1). Be imitators together (i.e. with one another: so, and not imitators together with those mentioned below (Mey., Wies.), must the word here be rendered. The latter would be allowable as far as the word is concerned, but the form of the sentence determines for the other. forms a complete clause, in which has the place of emphasis, and in the preposition: it is therefore unallowable to pass on the sense of the . to another clause from which it is separated by and another verb. So that instead of … being a reason for this meaning, it is in fact a reason against it) of me, and observe (for imitation: , Xen. Symp. iv. 42) those who walk in such manner as ye have an example in us. The construction is much controverted. Meyer and Wiesinger would separate and -observe those who thus walk (i.e. as implied above); as ye have (emphatic-ye are not in want of) an example in us (viz. Paul and those who thus walk). My objection to this is, that if and are to be independent-the three verbs , , , being thus thrown into three independent clauses, will be all correlative, and the will not apply to , but to the foregoing verbs, thus stultifying the sentence: Be &c., and observe &c., as ye have an example (viz. of being and of ) in us. Besides which, the would he (1) very vague as referring back to what went before, seeing that no has been specified, whereas (2) it is directly related to what follows, by the of Php 3:18. I therefore retain the usuul rendering. Meyers objections to it are, (1) that it is , not :-but this does not affect the matter: for, the example including in its reference the and the Philippians, the 2nd person would be more naturally used, the 3rd making a separation which would not be desirable:-(2) that it is , not :-but granting that this does not apply to Paul alone, it certainly cannot, as Mey., be meant to include the . . with him, which would be a way of speaking unprecedented in his writings,-but must apply to himself and his fellow-workers, Timotheus, Epaphroditus, &c. Of course the is no objection (as De W.) to the proper plural sense of , for it is used of that wherein they were all united in one category, as in (Plato), (sch.): see Khner, ii. 27.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Php 3:17. , imitators [followers] together with) Paul himself was an imitator [follower] of Christ; the Philippians, therefore, were to be imitators [followers] together with him.-, regard [mark]) with unanimity.-, so) The inferior examples of friends of the Cross of Christ ought to be tried by the standard of those that are superior and nearer to perfection.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Php 3:17
Php 3:17
Brethren, be ye imitators together of me,-The apostle and his colaborers are examples to all others, for all time and in all countries, as to how the truth of God is to be spread abroad. In another epistle he says: For yourselves know how ye ought to imitate us: for we behaved not ourselves disorderly among you; neither did we eat bread for nought at any mans hand, but in labor and travail, working night and day, that we might not burden any of you: not because we have not the right, but to make ourselves an ensample unto you, that ye should imitate us. (2Th 3:7-9). He certainly intended this to be an example to the preachers as well as to others, and shows that he did not regard his inspiration as placing him on a plane that prevented his being an example to others in his life of labor in spreading the gospel. I do not understand that he intended this as an example to others, that they were not allowed to accept help in their preaching, for he here asserts his right to receive help and in other passages reproves Christians for not aiding him, and approves them for rendering assistance as a means of their own salvation, so as to place it as beyond doubt that a teacher may receive help and that it is a duty, the neglect of which imperils their salvation, laid on Christians to help him who gives his time to proclaiming the word. The example is to teach Christians the duty of industry and of personal self-denial and labor for the spread of the truth, and that no preacher (and every Christian is a preacher) is exempted from the obligation to preach, because others fail to support him.
The first necessity in preaching the gospel is a Christian, so deeply in earnest that nothing short of death will stop him from preaching. He must feel like Paul-woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel. (1Co 9:16). He must be willing to preach it in want, in suffering, in hunger, and in prison. One who is willing to preach the gospel only when he can do it without inconvenience and self-denial on his part cannot preach it as it should be preached. He may recite the facts of the gospel, but there will be none of that earnest self-consuming zeal that carries the gospel with power to the hearts of others. I am sure that the inefficiency of the gospel to save today arises chiefly from the failure of Christians to present it with the intense zeal that the great truths of the gospel would and should naturally inspire in one who truly believes it. Paul says: Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling-place; and we toil, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; being defamed, we entreat: we are made as the filth of the world, the off-scouring of all things, even until now, and notwithstanding all this he said: Be ye imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ. (1Co 4:11-13; 1Co 11:1). If we are not willing to deny self, and suffer loss of all things in order to serve and honor God and save men, we have not the spirit of Christ and are none of his.
and mark them that so walk even as ye have us for an ensample.-[Just as he had counseled the Romans (Rom 16:17) to mark those that caused divisions and occasions of stumbling, contrary to the doctrine which they had learned, and to turn away from them, so he here instructs his readers to watch him and other faithful servants of the Lord for imitation.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
be: Phi 4:9, 1Co 4:16, 1Co 10:32, 1Co 10:33, 1Co 11:1, 1Th 1:6, 1Th 2:10-14, 2Th 3:7, 2Th 3:9, 1Ti 4:12, Heb 13:7, 1Pe 5:3
and mark: Psa 37:37, Rom 16:17, 2Th 3:14
Reciprocal: Mat 5:19 – do Rom 6:4 – even Eph 4:1 – walk 3Jo 1:11 – follow
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
(Php 3:17.) , -Be together imitators of me, brethren. 1Co 4:16; 1Co 11:1; 1Th 1:6-7; 2Th 3:9. See also 1Co 10:6; 1Co 10:11; 1Ti 4:12; Tit 2:7. Some difficulty lies in the reference contained in . With whom? Not, surely, as Bengel says- followers with me of Christ, for no such idea is expressed. Nor can we take it, with Meyer and Beelen, preceded by Estius, a-Lapide, and Theophylact, as signifying-along with others who follow me. There is no allusion, either distinct or remote, to members of other churches. We prefer the view of Calvin, van Hengel, Hoelemann, De Wette, and Alford, that the apostle says-be followers, one and all, of me, or be unitedly imitators of me. If it be asked-in what? then the previous context may easily determine the question. Nay farther-
-and observe those who walk in such a way as ye have us for an example. Wherever they found the life of the apostle imitated or displayed, they were to mark it, and make it their pattern. Any excellence which they thus discovered, they might by God’s grace attain to. It was not some distant spectacle which they were to gaze at and admire, but an embodiment of earnest faith, walking on the same platform with them, and speaking, acting, praying, suffering, and weeping among them. What had been possible to others, was surely not impossible to them. Why should they be behind in any gift or attainment, when the same means of acquisition were within their reach?
means exemplar, as in several other places, and is in the singular, to express the unity of the pattern, though exhibited by a plurality of persons. Khner, 407, 2; Bernhardy, p. 60. In is expressed the manner implied in the previous , and not, as Meyer says, an argument for the injunction in the first clause. The arguments of Meyer have been well disposed of by Alford. Meyer lays stress on as used instead of ; but the apostle is writing to the Philippians, and does not merely say-Mark them that walk after our example, but mark them who walk in such a way as ye see us walking; the , which these persons followed, is set directly before the Philippians as a model which they were to inspect, a standard which themselves are to apply to the conduct and character of others. The meaning then is-mark them which walk so, just as ye have us for an example (for them and us are evidently not the same class of persons), and not-be joint followers of me, and mark such as walk in unison with me, inasmuch as ye possess us as a pattern. By us we understand not the apostle himself, as Jaspis and Ellicott incline to believe-not him and all who so walked, for this last notion confounds those who set with those who followed the example; but the reference is-the apostle and those whom he was in the habit of identifying so closely with himself. Their example was in harmony with their teaching. They did not simply and timidly say, Walk as we bid you, but they boldly challenged inspection, and said, Walk as we do.
The reason why the apostle proposed his own example, and that of his associates, is now given by him. His life and theirs was in contrast with that of many others. There were men among them, professedly Christian, whose character was shamelessly sensual and secular. Motives of various kinds must have influenced not a few of the early converts, and brought them within the pale of the church. Novelty might have its share in producing a change which could be only superficial. Minds disgusted with gross superstitions and idolatries might relish the pure theism of the gospel, admire its benevolent and comprehensive ethics, and be entranced with its authoritative announcement of immortality. Yet they might not penetrate into its spirit, nor feel its transforming power. Change of opinion is not conversion, nor is the admiration of truth identical with the reception of its influence; while belief in immortality may create a distant cloudland where one may wander in fancy, and yet be far from inducing hearty and prolonged preparation for heaven. It seems, however, to be not speculative error in itself, but practical inconsistency, perhaps connected with or springing out of it, to which the apostle here refers. Already has he demonstrated the folly of trust in the flesh, of confidence in external privilege; and opening his bosom he has shown his own sensations-what he did once rely on, and might have still relied on. But what a revolution had passed over him; how he panted above all things to be found in Christ, to be justified by His righteousness; to know Him, and to be fully conformed to Him in life and death; how he relates that he is conscious of many shortcomings, that he is far from being what he hopes yet to be, but that, in the meanwhile, he spares no pains to realize his ideal, while he hopes that the Philippian church will exhibit the same earnest and unwearying effort! His mind naturally reverts to those who do not manifest this spirit; who live in the present, and for it; who prefer sensual gratification to spiritual enjoyment and prospect; and whose souls, so far from soaring in kindred aspiration with his, are absorbed in earthly things. The apostle felt that their sluggish and worldly life was fatal to them; nay, as his own attachment to the cross was the source of all his energy and eagerness, so he affirms that their low and grovelling state was the proof and the result of their enmity to the cross.
Fuente: Commentary on the Greek Text of Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Phillipians
Php 3:17. To be a follower means to be an imitator. Paul told his brethren at Corinth to be followers (imitators) of him as he was of Christ (1Co 11:1), and the same restriction holds good on our present verse. Mark means to take note of certain ones who were walking so–were following the pattern set by Paul–as ye have, or since ye have the apostles as examples.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Php 3:17. Brethren, be ye imitators together of me. Fellow-imitators would be the literal rendering of the noun in this clause, and it intimates that the apostle desires every one of the Philippians to join in this imitation; and not only so, but to vie with one another in their zeal in doing so, and yet to do what is only possible in the Christian race, each to seek to help his neighbour forward, as well as to make progress himself.
and mark them which so walk, even as ye have us for an ensample. Just as to the Romans (Rom 16:17) he counsels that they should mark them that cause divisions for avoidance, so the apostle and those like him are to be looked at for imitation. It is possible to take the clause as equivalent to which so walk as I walk, according as ye have, etc., or which walk in such wise as ye have us for an example; but the former seems to suit the Greek best. So that the connection of the verse would be: Imitate roe, and mark those who walk as I do, according as you have us (both them and me) for a copy.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Here our apostle proposes his own example to their imitation: follow me, who have renounced all my Jewish privileges, all confidence in any thing of my own; and mark them for your patterns, who walk so as to have us for an example.
O! how happy is it when the ministers of Christ go before their people, and tread out the steps which they are to take towards heaven; when they can say to their people, (without any upbraiding from their own consciences,) Be followers of us, and of all such as have us for an example.
Next, he warns them against following the doctrines and practices of the false teachers, the judaizing doctors, those great zealots for the observation of the ceremonial law, and the rite of circumcision; these he paints out in their proper colours:
1. He calls them the enemies of the cross of Christ, because they preached up the necessity of circumcision, and the observation of the ceremonial law; and so, in effect, denied Christ to be come in the flesh, or affirmed that he died in vain.
Whose end is destruction: if they persist in their wicked doctrines and practices, their end will be everlasting destruction:
Whose god is their belly; who chiefly mind the gratification and pleasing of a sensual appetite: they who serve their belly before God, or as they should serve God, do make a god of their belly; we may provide for the belly, but not serve it; that is to serve us, by fitting us to serve God, our neighbours, and ourselves;
Whose glory is in their shame; that is, they gloried in their wicked practices in general, whereof they ought to be ashamed, and in the circumcision of the shameful member in particular; they are puffed up with that which should rather make them blush:
They mind earthly things; the riches, honours, pleasures, applause of the world, are things wholly upon their hearts,
counting gain godliness, not regarding Christ’s interest, but only the promoting their own designs.
Lord! what a dismal character is this of those men that undertake to be teachers of others! With what a black coal doth the apostle draw their picture! and yet his hand was guided by the Spirit of God, whose judgment of them was according to truth.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Be Careful Who You Follow
The apostle also warned them against some who claimed to be Christians, yet were enemies of the cross. A warning about false teachers is a recurrent theme in Paul’s preaching. He urged the elders from Ephesus to watch out for themselves and the flock they had been appointed to oversee. “For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves.” He instructed them to keep a careful watch, while remembering the way he had warned them constantly with tears for three years. He told them their best defense was God’s word. After all, it was able to give them strength and prepare them for a heavenly home ( Act 20:28-32 ; Rom 16:17 ; 2Th 3:6 ; 2Th 3:14 ).
One should not be mislead into thinking Paul hated the false teachers. He cried over the state they were in, but warned brethren not to follow them. Their god was service to selfish interest. They were proud of things of which they should have been ashamed. Their minds were set on earthly things ( Php 3:18-19 ; Col 3:1-12 ).
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
Php 3:17-19. Brethren, be followers together , joint imitators, of me Obedient to my directions, and following the pattern which God enables me to set before you; and mark Observe and imitate them; who walk so as ye have us Myself and the other apostles of Christ, for an ensample. For many Even teachers, as they profess themselves to be, walk in a very different manner; of whom I have told you often in time past, and now tell you even weeping While I write, for indeed well may I weep on so lamentable an occasion; that they are enemies of the cross of Christ Unwilling to suffer any thing for him and his cause, and counteracting the very end and design of his death. Observe, reader, such are all cowardly, all shamefaced, all delicate Christians. Whose end is destruction This is placed in the front, that what follows may be read with the greater horror; whose God is their belly Whose supreme happiness lies in gratifying their sensual appetites. The apostle gives the same character of the Judaizing teachers, (Rom 16:18; Tit 1:11,) and, therefore, it is probable that he is speaking here chiefly of them and of their disciples. Whose glory is in their shame In those things which they ought to be ashamed of: and whoever glories in the commission of any sin, or in the omission of any duty which he owes to God, his neighbour, or himself; or in the gratification of those inclinations and dispositions that are contrary to the love of God and his neighbour; or in that manner of employing his money, his knowledge, his authority over others, or his time, which is contrary to the will of God, and manifests that he is not a faithful steward of Gods manifold gifts, glories in his shame: who mind Relish, desire, seek, pursue; earthly things Things visible and temporal, in preference to those which are invisible and eternal; for to be carnally minded is death, Rom 8:6.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Php 3:17-21. A Contrast.The Philippians are to follow Pauls example in this matter. It is needed because many live very differently. They are a great grief to him; indulging in gross living and even glorying in that for which they should be ashamed, their minds are set on earthly things. Paul and the Philippians claim a citizenship in heaven, corresponding to the claim of citizenship in Rome, which the people in Philippi may put forward, seeing that it is a Roman colony. He and they are looking for Christ to come from heaven (a fourth and most distinct allusion to the Parousia), when He will transform their very bodies (lit. the body that belongs to our low estate) into the likeness of His glorified body.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
SECTION 9. WORLDLY-MINDED CHURCH- MEMBERS, WITH WHOM IS CONTRASTED THE CHRISTIANS HOPE.
CH. 3:17-4:1.
Be joint-imitators of me, brethren, and mark those who thus walk, according as ye have us for an example. For many walk of whom I often said to you, and now say even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose God is the belly, and their glory is in their shame, who mind the earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven, whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will refashion the body of our humiliation conformed to the body of His glare, according to the working whereby He is able even to subject to Himself all things. So then, my brethren, beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, in this way stand in the Lord, beloved ones.
Exhortation to imitate Paul, Php 3:17 : opposite conduct of some church-members, Php 3:18-19 : with which is contrasted the Christians hope, Php 3:20-21 : concluding exhortation to steadfastness, Php 3:1.
Php 3:17. Joint-imitators of me, become ye: join with others in imitating Paul. The chief word here differs only one syllable from that in 1Co 4:16; 1Co 11:1, where Paul speaks of himself as an example. [So always when a genitive follows the word imitators: cp. 1Th 1:6; 1Th 2:14.] This is simpler than the exposition join with me in imitating Christ: for there is no reference in the context to the example of Christ; whereas in Php 3:17 b Paul speaks expressly of himself and others as patterns to the Philippians.
Mark: to look with a purpose, especially with a view to avoid, imitate, or obtain. Compare and contrast the same word in Rom 16:17. Same word as look-at in Php 2:4, and 2Co 4:18. The word walk takes up the similar, though not the same word in Php 3:16.
Who walk thus: viz. imitating Paul.
According as ye have etc.: a fact with which the above exhortations are in agreement. [This exposition gives to its full force as introducing a harmony. Had it introduced merely an exposition of , would probably have been used, as in Eph 5:28; Eph 5:33.]
Us: in contrast to me, including Paul and those who walk as he does. Such persons are an enrichment to the Philippian Christians: ye have a pattern. Same word and sense in 1Th 1:7; 2Th 3:9, where as here many men are one pattern; and in 1Ti 4:12; Tit 2:7 : same word in slightly different sense in Rom 5:14; Rom 6:17; 1Co 10:6.
While exhorting his readers in Php 3:15-16 Paul placed himself among their number: let us be of this mind we have attained. Conscious that he is himself doing what he exhorts, he now bids them to imitate him; and in so saying remembers that others are setting the same example. Upon these disciples who follow the steps of their teacher, Paul advises his readers to fix their attention, making use of the pattern they possess. He thus teaches the value of study of Christian character.
Notice that the example of Paul did not supersede the need and value of the example of others who imitate him. For a less example under our immediate observation is sometimes more effective than a greater one at a distance. And various good men present varieties of excellence suitable for imitation in various positions of life.
Php 3:18. Reason for the foregoing exhortation; viz. that many pursue an opposite path. These were apparently church-members. For the hostility and sensuality and worldliness of pagans was so familiar to Paul that it would hardly move him to tears. The neutral word walk (see under 1Co 3:3) simply places beside the walk of those who imitate Paul the outward life of these unworthy men. The path in which they walk is left to be inferred from what follows.
Many and often: notes of importance.
I have often said: probably when present at Philippi, where Paul must have been twice and possibly oftener, during his third missionary journey. It may also have included written warnings. The singular number, I said, suggests special warnings from Paul himself.
Even weeping; reveals the terrible position of the men referred to and the damage they were doing.
The enemies of the cross; implies that the death of Christ holds a unique place as a chief means of the advancement of His Kingdom. And this can be explained only by Pauls teaching in Rom 3:24-26 that our salvation comes, by the grace of God, through the death of Christ making the justification of believers consistent with the justice of God. To resist the cross of Christ, is to resist the tremendous earnestness of God meeting a tremendous need of man, and the infinite love, there manifested. We wait to know more about the men guilty of sin so great.
Php 3:19. Further description of the enemies of the cross. Whose end: as in 2Co 11:15, where see note. Destruction: utter ruin: see note under Rom 2:24, and especially The Expositor, 4th series, vol. i. p. 24. That ruin is here said to be the end of these men, implies clearly that Paul believed in the possibility of final ruin. For if all men will at last be saved, destruction cannot be their end. In that case the end of all men would be eternal life. The plain words before us prove that such universal salvation was altogether alien to the thought of Paul. For the universal purpose of salvation, see under Php 2:11.
Whose whose: stately repetition.
The belly: not their belly. The seat of appetite for food is looked upon in the abstract as one definite idea; and is thus in some sense personified; so 1Co 6:13. This gives great force to the terrible charge whose God is the belly. A similar, though slightly different thought in Rom 16:18. The appetite for food and the desire for pleasant food, with all the self-indulgence of which this appetite is a representative, are the supreme power which these men obey. The lower element of their nature controls the whole of it. The absence of the word whose before glory in their shame joins these words to the foregoing as together forming a second item in the description.
Glory: that which evokes admiration: see under Rom 1:21. That which evokes from their fellows admiration of them, and to which they look for admiration, is found in that which is their disgrace and ought to cover them with shame. To them, their degradation is their ornament.
The earthly things: good or ill, these looked upon as a complex yet definite idea: hence the plural, and the definite article.
Who mind: as in Php 3:15; Php 2:2; Php 2:5; Rom 8:5, etc.: a word frequent in this Epistle. The things of earth, i.e. material good and ill, are the objects of their mental activity. Exact contrast in Col 3:1; mind the things above.
About these enemies of the cross, Pauls first thought is the ruin which awaits them. He then mentions the most conspicuous feature of their character, viz. that desires common to animals are the supreme object of their worship, the lower thus ruling the higher. Closely connected with this terrible inversion, we find that that which gains for them admiration with their fellows is really their disgrace. All this Paul traces to its ultimate source, viz. concentration of their thought on things pertaining to the material world. This preference of the lower for the higher is inevitably degrading. Hence comes the supremacy of bodily appetites, and the distorted vision which mistakes a disgrace for an ornament. The result is ruin. Since Christ died in order to raise us above the dominion of the perishing world in which our bodies live, they who surrender their mental powers to contemplation of earthly things and their nature to the control of its lowest elements, by so doing declare war against the cross of Christ.
This fearful description of men who must have been church-members is in sad agreement with 2Co 12:21. It is thus a note of genuineness. But we have no hint that these were members of the Church at Philippi. And this is contradicted by Php 1:4 and the general tone of the Epistle. Nor do we know whether or not they were at Rome, where Paul was writing.
Php 3:20. This verse supports the condemnation implied in the last words of Php 3:19 by pointing to the city in heaven whose rights of citizenship are despised by those who fix their thoughts on earthly things.
City or commonwealth: the city looked upon as the home of municipal life and rights. Same word in 2 Macc. xii. 7: root up the whole city of the men of Joppa, so that the municipality of Joppa shall cease to be. Practically the sense would be the same if we gave to the word the meaning citizenship or rights-of-citizens, which it sometimes has. For where the city is there are the citizen rights.
Our city: viz. of Paul and those who imitate him; as in Php 3:17, us a pattern. Cp. Clement of Alex. Miscellanies bk. iv. 26: For the Stoics say that heaven is properly a city, but the things on earth no longer cities; said to be such, but not so actually the Elysian plains are the municipalities of just men. Is, or better exists, in heaven, in complete contrast to the earthly things of Php 3:19. Our commonwealth is in heaven: same thought in 2Co 5:1; Gal 4:26, where see notes. It is in heaven because there Christ is, in whom dwells the power which in the new earth and heaven will create the glorified home of His servants now on earth.
Whence: out of heaven, from within the veil which now hides from our view the unseen world.
We wait for: a strong word used in the same connection in Rom 8:19; Rom 8:23; Rom 8:25; 1Co 1:7; Gal 5:5; Heb 9:28 : cp. 1Th 1:10.
Also we wait etc.: in addition to already having a city in heaven.
Saviour: Eph 5:23. Also 2Ti 1:10; Tit 1:4; Tit 2:13; Tit 3:6; Act 13:23 in a sermon by Paul, referring to Christ; 1Ti 1:1; 1Ti 2:3; 1Ti 4:10; Tit 1:3; Tit 2:10; Tit 3:4, referring to God. Our home in which we have municipal rights exists in heaven: and we are eagerly waiting for One from heaven who will rescue us from the perils and hardships around.
Php 3:21. The deliverance which the expected Saviour will work, and the standard with which it will correspond.
Fashion-anew: give to it an altered shape and guise. Same word in 1Co 4:6; 2Co 11:13-15. This use of a word denoting only a change of shape suggests the continuity of the present and future bodies. Cp. Rom 8:12, raise your mortal bodies. And this continuity must be, in a way inconceivable to us, real. But it does not imply, any more than does the continuity of our bodies on earth, identity of material atoms. Niagara remains the same while every drop of water is ever changing. It is rather a continued relation to the human spirit of its material clothing. A description of the change is given in 1Co 15:35-53.
Our body, not bodies: as in Rom 6:12; see note under Rom 1:21. The body of, i.e. standing in relation to, our humiliation. On earth the servants of Christ are exposed to weakness, sickness, reproach, hardship, and peril. This their lowly estate, so inconsistent with their real rank, is determined by the constitution of their material clothing, which is therefore the body of their humiliation. But when Christ comes out of the unseen world He will refashion it. The body of Christ is the visible, material, human manifestation of His divine splendour: the body of His glory.
Conformed: sharing the form of: akin to the word form in Php 2:6. It is stronger than the word rendered fashion-anew, denoting such change of the mode of self-presentation as implies a share of the inward constitution of the body of Christ. When Christ appears, the changed bodies of His servants will become so like His body, which belongs to His essential splendour, as to share its mode of presenting itself to those who beheld it.
According to the working etc.: a measure with which will correspond the coming change. This phrase is a marked feature of this group of Epistles: Col 1:29; Eph 1:19; Eph 3:7; Eph 4:16; cp. Col 2:12; Php 2:13.
Working: literally inworking or activity, an inward putting forth of power. It is the Greek original of our word energy. Literally rendered, Pauls words are according to the energy, or the inworking, of His being able, i.e. of His ability, to subject to Himself etc.
All things: all the various objects in the universe, persons and things, these looked upon as a definite object of thought.
To subject to Himself all things: 1Co 15:27-28. It suggests that not yet do all things bow to Christ. But Christ has the abiding power to bend to His will all the component parts of the universe. The conformation of our bodies to His body will correspond with the activity of this abiding power. And this power confirms greatly our faith that He will remove from our bodies those mortal elements hostile to us and insubordinate to Him. These words also suggest that the victory to be gained in our bodies is part of a greater victory which will embrace and rescue all things. Thus, as ever, Paul rises from the particular to the general, from the partial to the universal.
Christs ability to subject all things to Himself does not contradict the sad indication in Php 3:19 that some will be finally lost. For the putting forth of His power is determined by His infinite wisdom, which passes our thought.
Notice here a clear proof of the divinity of Christ. The resurrection will be His work, a work in harmony with His infinite power.
Php 4:1. So-then: as in Php 2:12. It introduces a desired practical result of 9, and completes the exhortation begun in Php 3:19.
My brethren: recalling Php 3:17.
Longed for: natural result of being loved. Notice the warm affection of this double description, an affection prompted both by the unique excellence of the Philippians and by their love for Paul.
My joy: understood only by those who have children in the faith. Pauls converts at Philippi were its living embodiment.
And crown: as in 1Co 9:25 : the garland given to successful athletes. Close parallel in a letter to another Macedonian Church: 1Th 2:19. These converts of Paul were themselves to be his joyous reward. For they were a divinely-given result, and therefore a reward, of his labours. Moreover, since only in the light of the Great Day shall we see the full result of our labours on earth and be able to estimate the worth of a soul saved or lost, Paul speaks in 1Th 2:19 of the crown as given at the coming of Christ.
In-this-way stand: as do Paul and those whom in Php 2:17 he held up as a pattern.
Stand: as in Rom 5:2, etc.; maintain your spiritual position in spite of burdens which would press you down and of enemies who would put you to flight.
In the Lord: 1Th 3:8 : the personality of the Master whom they serve being the only firm standing ground of the Christian life.
Beloved: intensifying this loving appeal.
In 8, after a warning against Jewish opponents, Paul pointed to his own religious life, and especially to his eagerness for progress, as a pattern for his readers. In 9, he bids them observe and follow the men who imitate this pattern. This exhortation he justifies by pointing to sensual men who while bearing the name of Christ yet live for the present world. In contrast to these he describes the hope of a glorious resurrection cherished by himself and others, a hope prompted and measured by the omnipotence of Christ. In this hope and this example Paul bids his much-loved readers stand.
This appeal to the expectation of a bodily resurrection, in an exhortation to walk worthy of Christ, reveals the moral and spiritual power of the Christians hope of future glory. This hope takes hold of eternity, and thus saves us from drifting with the current around.
Fuente: Beet’s Commentary on Selected Books of the New Testament
This verse is transitional. It applies equally well to what precedes and to what follows.
Paul’s advice might appear to some as egocentric. Nonetheless the reason he encouraged others to follow his example was that he was following Christ (cf. 1Co 11:1). Those who walked after Paul’s pattern of life included Timothy and Epaphroditus. In Philippians, Paul typically gave warnings and then followed them up with encouragements in the form of good examples.
"At issue throughout is living a cruciform existence, discipleship marked by the cross and evidenced by suffering on behalf of Christ." [Note: Fee, Paul’s Letter . . ., p. 363.]
Paul introduced this section with an exhortation to rejoice (Php 3:1) and a warning against Judaizing false teachers who would rob the readers of their joy (Php 3:2). He then explained his own view of the Christian life (Php 3:3-14) and gave a final admonition to adopt his attitude (Php 3:15-17). This was appropriate since his view differed radically from what the Judaizers taught, and it expressed the mind of Christ (Php 2:5-11).
Paul had previously used the examples of Jesus Christ (Php 2:5-11), himself (Php 2:17-18), Timothy (Php 2:19-24), and Epaphroditus (Php 2:25-30) to challenge his readers. In this section his own example encourages us again to make Jesus Christ the focus of our lives. Many Christians are not very effective because they try to do too many different things. Paul had one clearly defined goal in relation to Christ: to get to know His Savior better and better.