A Reflection on Philippians 3:4b-14

“If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more…” I used to read these verses as a polemic against legalists. Indeed, this seems to be what Paul is after. He apparently intends to contrast those who place their confidence on the things of the flesh, i.e. legalism, with those, represented by Paul, who place their confidence in the righteousness that comes by faith. And so Paul says – “ok, if you want to compare reasons for confidence, then I win! But all of these things which made me confident of my standing before the Lord; whatever I perceived to be to my religious advantage, I count as loss. It does not even come close to the surpassing value that comes from knowing Christ.” Ah, such great rhetorical polemic against those legalists!

But suppose that the application of Paul’s polemic here goes beyond the legalists. Suppose that Paul is talking to anyone who places too much stress on their own spiritual achievements, even those which aren’t classically legalistic?

The current favorite whipping boy of “enlightened” are those whom we believe to be legalists. How fond we are to remind ourselves that after much consideration, we are right and they are wrong. I am sure that we mean it with the best of intentions, but we are quite fond of reminding our congregations how great it is to finally have realized how wrong we were all those years we spent as one of the legalists, and how happy we now are to have discovered grace, and if only all those legalists would just wake up and discover how much better it is to live over here where we are.

I can almost hear Paul saying it. “If anyone has confidence in the flesh, I have more: a preacher of grace; proponent of inclusiveness; purveyor of social justice; and towards those who get it wrong – non-judgmental.”

Now there is absolutely nothing wrong with any of these things. I think that this is truly who I should be and the kind of preacher needed in the church. The problem is that my confidence in my achieved spiritual maturity is just a re-packaged version of the confidence that a legalist feels in claiming to have gotten everything right.

Paul says that all that confidence in the flesh is rubbish, it is garbage, it is putrescence; it is to be left behind so that we may “gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ,” a righteousness that really comes from God, not my own sense of spiritual achievement, and that is really based on faith.

I like the fact that I know that I am right. I am proud of the fact that I am considered a liberal, maverick preacher in my denomination. What’s more, it affords me the privilege of lobbing my smug grenades at any and all who disagree with me. “Oh if only they could figure out how much better it is over here – KA BOOM” “If only those legalists would wake up and smell the grace – KA BLAM!”

And God, through Paul, flies through the smog of my superiority and asks – what are you really willing to give up to know Christ?

No, I can no longer think that Paul is just talking to legalists here in Philippians 3. He is talking to me. He is asking me to give up my confidence not in my legalism, but in my liberalism. He is asking me to rely on actual faith instead of spiritual achievement, regardless of how right I believe that achievement to be.

Instead, Paul calls me to a righteousness that is from God and is based on faith that leads me not to Spiritually Superior Mountain, but to “knowing Christ” and a shared experience of his sufferings and conformation to his death.

In Philippians 3, Paul calls me to realize that what I have done in the past, whatever achievements or strides in maturity or growth in grace I have made do not allow me to simply stop and bask in the glow of my spiritual perfection. Wherever I am on discipleship’s road is merely one point on the journey toward the ultimate union with Christ at the resurrection of the dead. Paul calls me to understand that I am still imperfect in my positions and in my understandings, no matter how confident in them I might be. I never get to the point where I get to proclaim that I have arrived.

What am I willing to give up to know Christ?

Am I willing to give up my own confidence in my spiritual decisions? Am I willing to sacrifice the theological certainty in which I operate for the frightening uncertainty of truly pursuing a righteousness that comes from God through faith? Am I willing to try and intentionally conform to the pattern of Christ’s life so that I might share in his sufferings and be conformed to his death?

I would like to say that I can confidently answer these questions. The truth is that I can’t. Just as my spiritual location is simply a point in time on a journey of ever-increasing discipleship toward the image of Christ; so also is my desire continually in the process of transformation. Perhaps all I can hope for is that I want to know Christ and be conformed to his image more today than I did yesterday; and I that I want to do more in my life to attain to the goal of Christ-likeness today than I did yesterday, that the same will hold true for tomorrow.

Such is the kingdom of God - a world where confidence rests solely, only, singularly, and whole-heartedly in Jesus and not in my own spiritual confidences or achievements.