Keep on imitating me, my friends. Pay attention to those who follow the right example that we have set for you. I have told you this many times before, and now I repeat it with tears: there are many whose lives make them enemies of Christ’s death on the cross. They are going to end up in hell, because their god is their bodily desires. They are proud of what they should be ashamed of, and they think only of things that belong to this world. We, however, are citizens of heaven, and we eagerly wait for our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, to come from heaven. He will change our weak mortal bodies and make them like his own glorious body, using that power by which he is able to bring all things under his rule.
Phil 3:17-21
Given Paul’s Us vs Them contrast, most of us would think Paul is talking about those who follow Christ and those who are outsiders: Christians and Non-Christians. While that is a given in one sense, it is not that to which Paul referred. Yes the context fits the wider comparison but actually Paul is contrasting those who believe with those who think they do. Those who are bound for the Life of the Age to Come compared with those who only think they are going to heaven.
He began in the first chapter with:
And because of my imprisonment, most of the believers here have gained confidence and boldly speak God’s message without fear. It’s true that some are preaching out of jealousy and rivalry. But others preach about Christ with pure motives. They preach because they love me, for they know I have been appointed to defend the Good News. Those others do not have pure motives as they preach about Christ. They preach with selfish ambition, not sincerely, intending to make my chains more painful to me.
Phil 1:14-17
I think you will agree with me, Paul is talking about so called believers in these passages. I have emboldened the relevant parts.
Don’t be intimidated in any way by your enemies. This will be a sign to them that they are going to be destroyed, but that you are going to be saved, even by God himself. For you have been given not only the privilege of trusting in Christ but also the privilege of suffering for him. We are in this struggle together. You have seen my struggle in the past, and you know that I am still in the midst of it.
Phil 1:28-30
Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil, those mutilators who say you must be circumcised to be saved.
Phil 3:2
If you remember Paul is talking here about the Judaisers, of whom he was one before meeting Christ on the road to Damascus. A look back at Gem 1962 will remind you of who these words of Paul were referring to. It is no coincidence that Paul then looks back at his life as a Judaiser and concludes that whatever he used to boast about back then, he subsequently saw as dung in the light of his encounter with the resurrected Christ. His comments were personal and topical, related to this struggle he found himself in.
The focus throughout Philippians as Paul contrasted Us vs Them is not on unbelievers. Rather the focus is on the opposition within the ranks of the church. He may have been referring to the Judaisers in the midst of the body of believers in Philippi but the words I have made bold in all passages above seem to suggest it is those who claim to be Christian who were in Paul’s sights. That comes as a bit of a shock , but it shouldn’t. So often the real threat against the believers, the real threat to those who are seeking after the truth, are those scattered among the Body of Christ who are in reality wolves in sheep’s clothing. It annoys and frustrates me that the media use pseudo-Christians on TV, radio and whatever other social media outlet you care to name when it comes to debates about the truth of Christianity. The real meaning of Christmas, Easter, the Resurrection and so on. If they plan to discredit Christianity in debates on moral issues or matters of Truth they choose those with agendas from within to represent the Body of Christ. Why wouldn’t they, when insiders can do a better job of discrediting the message of the Gospel when they are brought in to discuss what being a true Christian really means? No wonder the world and the non-believers have a distorted view of what it means to be a Christian and what is needed to attain to the resurrection of dead. Those are the ones that Paul was taking issue with in the church in Philippi.
Notice how he arranges what he has to say in a contrast between Them and Us / Us and Them. The way Paul wrote this letter brings the focus and the actions of the two groups into stark contrast. I have drawn up the table below to help you see what Paul was doing in the context of what he wrote.
The Focus | Them | Us |
---|---|---|
Example | the wrong example | the right example |
Life style | the way they live | the way to live |
Cross of Christ | enemies of the Cross | knowing the fellowship of suffering |
End | destruction | heaven |
Target | the pleasures of this life | the life of the age to come |
Goal | shameful things | good, pure, reputable things |
Mindset | earthly – their bellies | heavenly – the coming Saviour |
Citizenship | of this world | (eagerly waiting for) heaven |
Life Focus | mortal bodies | immortal bodies |
Prize | destruction (hell) | heaven |
I believe this table makes what Paul was intending very clear. It also brings into focus what is happening around us in this crazy current world. As I referred to in Gem 1087 when looking at the blessings and the woes, this world’s value system has been messed up. I used Tony Campolo’s example found in his book, Who Switched the Price Tags? In this day and age the worldly perspective on life has sunk further down. Now we question true and false news – each now has their own truth, you have yours and I have mine. We have lost our grip on reality, just as Paul said we would.
You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that!
2 Timothy 3:1-5
Well, you have to admit that Paul hit the nail on the head far more pointedly than George Orwell. That sums it up. Now we call male “female” and female “male”. My government in NZ is planning legislation so that people can change their gender on their birth certificate. I am not going to even comment (much) on the stupidity of that piece of legislation. It’s like going back and rewriting history as in the case of the Holocaust in Germany. It’s absurd.
There is one more controversial thing for me to deal with from this passage. Heaven and Hell. Now you are worried. Oh no! Ian is now going to deal with heaven and hell. Just how long is this Gem going to be? Relax, sit back and take a breath. Actually hell is not mentioned in this passage. Paul’s focus in this section is [epi geios] or [en ouranois] or in other words focused “on earthly things” or “in heavenly things”. Geocentric or Heaven-centric. [Gē] is the word for “earth” and [ouranos] the word for “heavens”. Are you earth centred or heaven centred? Of course this fits Paul’s overarching theme of mindset. I don’t need to remind you of that; you already saw that link. “Hell” as such, is not found in this passage.
I am well aware that there are translations which insert “hell” into Phil 3:19 but the word is not there. Paul did not use the word for “hell” in any form of the options available to him. Rather he used the word [απωλεια] (apōleia) which means “destruction” or “ruin”, “to be destroyed”. Or as Eugene Peterson puts it in the Message version – a dead-end street. There is certainly no Life of the Age to Come that way. They have filled their body cavity (their bellies or the place where the body derives nourishment) with futile shameful things and the end result is destruction, ruin or nothingness. We have indeed reached a dead end.
Now that we have come to the end of Phil 3:17-21 this is a good point to pause. When we arrive at a chapter break we have to stand at the border and look over the fence to survey the lay of the land. What is ahead of us and how does it connect to what is behind us. I know that Paul wrote “forgetting what is behind” and “stretching out toward the finish line” but that was in the context of his race analogy. We must always look in all directions as we move forward in the text. We need to see how ‘what lies ahead’ fits what Paul has just been discussing. Allow me to call us back to
The Macro Questions which remain:
- Why then switch suddenly to the positivity of Chapter 4 after a brief interlude on two feuding women in the church in Philippi?
- Tell me again Ian, how this letter written over 2 millennia ago by a Jew in Palestine is relevant to me in 21st Century NZ?
The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.
George Orwell
On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.
George Orwell
The opposite of law was never grace, but lawlessness; the opposite of grace was never law but disgrace.
Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg
An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.
Mahatma Gandhi
we live in age where what is right and wrong is what we can get away with.
I like that it’s often so true
Kev
Yes true. There is a big difference between practice and what is morally right; especially in God’s eyes.