Philippians 3:1-6

 

REMEMBERING WHO WE ARE

 

By: Scott Grant

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The Lion King

 

            In the movie “The Lion King,” Simba, a young lion, is questioning his identity. His destiny is to be king, but he is resistant. Then his dead father, Mufasa, appears to him in a vision and tells him, “Simba, you have forgotten me. You have forgotten who you are and so forgotten me. Look inside yourself, Simba. You are more than what you have become. … Remember who you are. You are my son, and the one true king. Remember who you are. Remember. Remember. Remember … "1

            “Who am I?”

            That is a question for the ages, not just Disney movies. The scriptures tell us that those of us who follow Jesus have an identity. We are children of God. Like Simba, we are sons and daughters of a king. Put another way, we are the people of God, marked out as such by Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Whatever else can be said of us, this is who we are. But often it’s the “whatever-else-can-be-said-of-us” that distracts us, or at least the “whatever-else-we’d-like-to-be-said-of-us.” We’re attracted by alternative definitions put forth by the culture we come from or live in. Each culture has its own marks of identity, usually defined by the heritage and achievement of its members. These markers serve as a way of telling who’s “in” and who’s “out,” mostly so that those who are in can feel significant and secure. The Apostle Paul, in Philippians 3:1-6, warns us against grasping for and clinging to these false identity markers, and he reminds us who we are. The text is rich in contemporary meaning, but first we must try to understand the historical setting.

 

            Philippians 3:1-6:

[1] Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. [2] Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh. [3] For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh – [4] though I myself have reasons for such confidence. [5] If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; [6] as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.

 

            (The structure of the passage features two lists of seven, each of which features a center point – the fourth description in each list. A more literal translation demonstrates the grammatical connections, and a schematic presentation demonstrates the structure.2)

 

False people of God

 

            The words translated “finally” here would carry the sense of “well, then,” or “as for the rest.” Paul tells them to “rejoice in the Lord” (the Lord is Jesus, as in Philippians 2:11), which would be an antidote for the mindset of those depicted in verse 2. Rejoicing in the Lord mitigates against putting confidence “in” the flesh (verse 3). The “same things” that Paul writes again are his warnings and exhortations that follow. Evidently, they have heard this before.

Paul warns his readers, literally, to “see” people he describes in three ways: “dogs,” “men who do evil” and “mutilators of the flesh.” These are people who take pride in their Jewish heritage. It’s possible that they were Jewish evangelists who urged followers of Jesus to abandon Christ in favor of Judaism. They are probably not the “Judaizers” Paul writes of in Galatians who are trying themselves to follow Jesus and convince the Gentiles to be circumcised as part of following Jesus. If they were, Paul would probably not combat their teachings by saying that he was once like them, a persecutor of the church (verse 6), when the Judaizers were not, in fact, persecutors of the church. These Jews were not followers of Jesus. There is more than a little irony in each description.

Dogs were scavengers that Jews considered unclean. Jews, of course, considered Gentiles unclean, and even used the term for Gentiles (Matthew 15:21-28). Like dogs, Gentiles ate food that, from a Jewish perspective, was ceremonially unclean. A good Jew, on the other hand, observed prescribed food laws and kept himself pure. Paul turns the tables on these people and says that they are unclean. They are like the pagans.

            These Jews, of course, would have thought of themselves as doers of righteousness, in accordance with the Mosaic Law. By relying on the Law, they are actually evil doers, according to Paul. They are like the pagans.

            The word translated “mutilators of the flesh” (katatome) is a takeoff on the word translated circumcision (peritome). It would be more literally translated “mutilation,” although such a translation still would not indicate the grammatical relationship between the words. Circumcision was the sign that one belonged to God’s covenant people. The Levitical priests were prohibited from cutting themselves (Leviticus 21:5).  Now, however, those Jews who are trusting in their circumcision are more like the pagans, who cut themselves for their gods (1 Kings 18:28).

 

True people of God

 

            Paul, on the other hand, rather emphatically states that it is “we who are the circumcision.” The pronoun “we” encompasses Paul, a Jewish follower of Jesus, and the Gentile followers of Jesus in Philippi. The believers in Jesus, both Jew and Gentile, now constitute the covenant people of God. In Christ “there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Sythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all” (Colossians 3:11). The Lord has always been after a circumcision of the heart – a heart that belongs to him (Deuteronomy 30:6). Paul, in an allusion to Deuteronomy 30:6, says in Romans 2:28-29: “A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man’s praise is not from men, but from God.” He also writes in Colossians 2:11-12: “In him [Christ] you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.”

            Paul offers a description of the true people of God to counter his description of the false people of God. This description is in keeping with the true and now fully realized nature of circumcision he elucidates in Colossians and Romans. The new identity markers, if you will, are the Spirit of God and Christ Jesus. Paul says elsewhere that we have been marked in Christ with a “seal,” the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13).

            First, the people of God “worship by the Spirit of God.” True worship and service are called forth by the Holy Spirit of God, who resides in each believer. God initiates. He takes responsibility. It is at his impulse that we worship him, serve him and follow Jesus.

            Second, the people of God, literally “boast in Christ Jesus.” Whereas the Jews would find circumcision and other ethnic markers to boast in to prove their covenant membership, Paul says the only thing the true people of God have to boast about is Christ. They know they only belong to God because of Christ. Paul probably has in mind Jeremiah 9:23-24, where the Lord says, “Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight.” The people of God know the Lord, Christ Jesus. As far as their qualifications for covenant membership are concerned, this is the only thing they can boast about.

            Third, the people of God “put no confidence in the flesh.” The Jews who Paul is castigating trust in the flesh – they trust in their ethnic heritage and observances, particularly the cutting away of their “flesh,” to set them off as the people of God. As Paul says in Romans 10:3, the Israelites sought their “own” national righteousness. They relied on their ethnic status and the supposedly inalienable privilege that it provided. And they tended to be rather exclusive about it. The identity markers for the people of God have nothing to do with ethnic heritage and observances and everything to do with the Spirit of God and Christ Jesus – and with faith, as Paul will say in verses 7 through 11.

 

Paul’s history

 

            In verse 4 Paul says that he wanted to play the game these Jews are playing, he could lick any of them. In fact, Paul used to play that game. His identity markers were the same as those advocated by these Jews. But that is all behind him now. Such identity markers are also behind the people of God, as the true meaning of those markers has been brought forth in the New Covenant. For Paul, there is no future in the past.

            Paul describes his former life in seven ways. Structurally, this balances the seven total ways in which he described the Jews (three ways) and the people of God (four ways) in vereses 2 and 3. The center point in the previous list was his affirmation that “it is we who are the circumcision.” The center point in this list is his description of himself as “a Hebrew of Hebrews.” Leading up to this center point, the list focuses on ethnic heritage, or covenant membership. On the other side of the center point, it focuses on ethnic accomplishment, or the expression of covenant membership.

            Paul was “circumcised on the eighth day,” in accordance with the law (Genesis 17:12, Leviticus 12:3). Some Jews, for whatever reason, were not circumcised on the eighth day. Paul is saying, “They got it right with me.” He is “of the people of Israel” by birth, not conversion. He is “of the tribe of Benjamin,” which was a tribe of prominence for many of reasons, not the least of which being that it was one of only two tribes, along with Judah, to which one’s heritage could still be traced.

            Based on his heritage and leading into his accomplishments, Paul says he is “a Hebrew of Hebrews.” By breeding and accomplishment, he would be considered an elite member of the nation of Israel.

            The final three descriptions each begin with the Greek word kata, although the New International Version translates the word in two different ways: “in regard to” and “as for.” The first three descriptions affirm that he was a purebred Israelite. The final three descriptions put forth his accomplishments as an Israelite.

            He chose to become, and was accepted as, a Pharisee, a sect that advocated scrupulous observance of the Mosaic law.

If a Jew was said to have “zeal,” it meant that he was passionate about God, the law, Jewish traditions and the purity of Israel (Acts 21:20, Romans 10:2-3). Many who were zealous in this way were willing to engage in holy war to purify Israel and overthrow enemies. The revolutionaries who advocated the overthrow of Rome were called Zealots. Paul saw the church, composed almost solely of Jews early on, as a corrupting influence in Israel. So he persecuted it. He writes about this in Galatians 1:13-14: “You have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous of the traditions of my fathers.”

            Finally, he says that he was “faultless” in regard to, literally, the “righteousness in the law.” He does not mean that he lived a perfect life; he means that he lived as an observant Jew.  He observed the sabbath, food laws and feasts (Colossians 2:16). He kept short accounts with God, participating in the sacrificial system and the Day of Atonement. Paul could probably have said, as another Israelite said regarding the 10 commandments, “All these I have kept since I was a boy” (Luke 18:21). In these regards, no one could fault him.

            Paul would not have said that any of these accomplishments enabled him to be a member of the people of God, as if he could have earned such a status. No, these are the ways in which he expressed his covenant membership. Nevertheless, such accomplishments for a Jew would tend to affirm his status and generate “confidence in the flesh” – confidence that one belongs to God because of ethnic privilege.

 

What it meant to the Philippians

 

            Why did Paul write these verses? Although the New International Version in verse 2 translates the word blepo as “watch out for,” it simply means “see.” Here, it probably means to observe the people who claim covenant membership based on racial heritage and express it through racial accomplishment. Paul must mean, “Don’t be like them.” But why would mostly Gentile followers of Jesus in the city of Philippi need to be told this? How might they tend to adopt a similar outlook on life?

Perhaps there was some temptation to convert to Judaism. The Philippian believers were being persecuted for their faith (Philippians 1:29-30), and Judaism was a safer, more established – but still monotheistic – option in the Roman empire.

Also, and probably more significantly, Philippi was a Roman colony, and many of its residents had Roman citizenship, which carried with it certain privileges. Both the Jews and the Philippians, then, would tend to consider themselves children of status and privilege. Those Jews who rejected their Messiah became like the pagans: dogs, evil doers and mutilators of the flesh. The Romans, of course, were pagans to begin with. In this letter, Paul takes particular aim against the pagan claims of Caesar, who called himself savior and lord. For Paul, Christ alone is Savior and Lord. The Philippians were beholden to Caesar for their status and privileges as Roman citizens.

What would it mean, then, for the Philippians to put confidence in the flesh? It would mean either gravitating toward the particular Jewish “flesh,” or it would mean clinging to and boasting in the status and privileges granted them by Caesar, and even bowing down to him, over and against clinging to and boasting in Christ and bowing down to him. No doubt there were certain things one would do to express his or her Roman citizenship, just as there were certain things Jews did to express their covenant membership. Such actions would affirm one’s status and generate confidence in the flesh – pride in status and related achievements.

There’s nothing wrong with being a Roman citizen, just as there’s nothing wrong with being a Jew. There’s nothing wrong with any tribe, any race, any nation. Yet there is something wrong with every tribe. Every tribe is made up sinners. In a collective sense, then, no tribe puts its trust in God. Not knowing what else to trust in, but needing to trust in something, the tribe trusts in iteself. A tribal, or national, consciousness develops. In order to prop up this cultural consciousness, each tribe wants to think of itself as the best. The members, then, take pride in their membership. Each cultural consciousness develops differently, so each tribe has different identity markers and different ways of expressing one’s membership.

For the Jews, it was circumcision; adherence to the Mosaic law; and, in some cases, revolutionary zeal. There was nothing wrong with circumcision and adherence to the Mosaic law (although there was something wrong with revolutionary zeal, in that it disobeyed God’s design for Israel to be a light to the nations). In fact, there was everything right about them. They were ordained by God. They were given by God so that the people might know and follow him. They were taken by the people, however, as a platform for national privilege, pride and exclusivity. In other words, they were seen as reasons for confidence in the flesh.

 

What it means for us

 

Finally, and most importantly, we have to ask ourselves what all this means for us. What is the nature of the national or tribal flesh that we may tend to put confidence in instead of putting confidence in the sufficency of Christ’s work on the cross and the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives? To answer this question, we have to ask ourselves what tribes we tend to identify with. Then we have to ask ourselves what are the identity markers of that tribe. Again, there is nothing wrong with belonging to any of these tribes. We need to be concerned only with how we put confidence in the tribal identity markers to the extent that they compete with our allegiance to Christ. We know this tendency is in us because we want our schools and our teams, our cities and our nations to triumph, and we root hard for them to do so.

 We may have a visceral attachment to the identity markers of our ethnic or national tribe. Most of us here are Americans. What marks you out as an American? Achieving the “American Dream” of success, wealth, notoriety and home ownership. Rugged individualism. Self-assertiveness. Expressing so-called “freedom” in whatever way pleases you. Pride in economic and military superiority. Many of you here are of Asian descent. What marks you out in your culture? Perhaps being able to speak the mother tongue. Academic achievement. Choosing and succeeding in the right kind of career and achieving a position of status. Saving face. Honoring the family.

            Then there are all sorts of smaller “tribes” – the people you hang with. These smaller tribes, or cliques, usually develop their own identity markers, much as college fraternities and sororities. When I graduated from college I hung out with two guys all the time. The three of  thought that no one was a cool as we were. If I told you what  we thought made us cool, you’d laugh your heads off. We had our own tribal identity markers, complete with inside jokes that we thought were the funniest things ever. We all believed in Christ, but the tribe took precedence – and had very little to do with Christ.

In 2 Corinthians 11:16-33, Paul talks about how, if he wanted to, he could boast in the flesh not only as a Jew but as a follower of Jesus as well. Finally, then, there are the “evangelical Christian” identity markers. Dutiful church attendance. Regular quiet times. Thorough biblical knowledge. Doctrinal purity. Involvement in “ministry.” Consistent “witnessing.” Adherence to a particular church system. The list goes on. There’s nothing wrong with these activities, but they engulf you with guilt, pride or exhaustion if you’re looking to place your identity in them. If, on the other hand, the Spirit of God is calling forth these activities, not as a means of propping up one’s identity but as a way to respond to the love of Christ, then they assume their proper and quite satisfying place.

Lee Knapp writes of how the church culture frustrated him: “While nothing I had been taught was in any way contrary to scripture, the church culture, one in which I rarely felt like myself, applied layer upon layer of conformity. Being insulated in such a culture either took away an honest estimation of sin, as people became spiritually proud, or it made them preoccupied with their sin in trying to eliminate it. I won lots of morality points and spiritual status this way, but in the end I lost my humanity.”3

Paul has two categories for the flesh: The first pertains to heritage, or that which is obtained by birth, and the second pertains to achievement, or what one does with what one obtains by birth. Taking pride in anything, be it heritage or achievement, is ludicrous, of course. What did any of us have to do with what tribe we were born into or what innate abilities we have? Nothing, of course. Am I “proud to be an American”? If so, what did I have to do with creating the land the country occupies, let alone the philosophy and system of government? I just happened to be born here. Then we may want to say, “Well, perhaps I had nothing to do with the hand that was dealt me, but I played it to the best of my ability.” But where did the ability, be it physical or mental, come from? Not from us. The tribal identity markers we grasp for and cling to are meaningless, and they distract us from “sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3). The Apostle John writes, “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and lust of the eyes and boastful pride of life, is not from the Father but is from the world” (1 John 2:16).

In moving toward Christ, many of us have sought to move away from the call of certain identity markers and points of pride. But we still hear their echo, and they haunt us like a bad memory. For Paul, there is no future in the past. For us, there is no future in the past. There is no future in tribal heritage or achievement. The future belongs to God. Listen to his voice.

The call is to live by the Spirit and boast in Christ. We belong to God solely because of Christ. Because of Christ, we are part of God’s tribe, which is composed of members of every tribe (Revelation 5:9). The Holy Spirit resides within us to reveal to us the glory of Christ and to motivate and empower us to activity that brings honor to God. Don’t put your confidence in the flesh. Don’t find your identity or your worth or your security in your heritage or your achievements. Put your trust in the Lord.

            Church historian Richard Lovelace writes of how, trusting the Lord, we can freely enter our culture – or any culture: “Thus men who are not secure in Christ cast about for spiritual life preservers with which to support their confidence, and in their frantic search they not only cling to the shreds of ability and righteousness they find in themselves, but they fix upon their race, their membership in a party, their familiar social and ecclesiastical patterns, and their culture as means of self-recommendation. The culture is put on as though it were armor against self-doubt, but it becomes a mental straitjacket which cleaves to the flesh and can never be removed except through comprehensive faith in the saving ork of Christ. Once faith is exercised, a Christian is free to be enculturated, to wear his culture like a comfortable suit of clothes. He can shift to other cultural clothing temporarily if he wishes to do so, as Paul suggests in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23, and he is released to admire and appreciate the differing expressions of Christ shining out through other cultures."4

We come here each week to worship God, connecting with Christ and the Spirit. In so doing, we remind ourselves who we are. We are children of God through Christ, born not of the flesh but of the Spirit. We have a new identity. We are members of God’s tribe. We come here to worship that we might be thrust out by God again into the cultures of this world, being filled up with the Spirit and Christ, repelling confidence in fleshly heritage and achievement, and holding high the banner God.

 

SCG / 3-10-02

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