Philippians 3:9-11

Sorry I didn't post yesterday (I was gone all day). I'm not sure if I'm supposed to post verses 3:9-11 now, or let the Friday person do it. So I guess I'll just run the risk. Sorry if I stole someone else's passage. Anyway, here's the text for today:

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:8-11)

First let us examine the context of this text. Verses 4 through 6 contained Paul's intentionally fruitless "boast" about his good works. Among all the Jews, the Pharisees were most likely the most obedient to the Law of Moses. And yet it is of them that Christ said,

Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. (Matthew 23:32-36)

So then we can see that Paul has seen the fruitlessness of his legal obedience. Indeed, it is quite a feat to say that one has been faithful to the Law, and yet it says here that the worth of knowing Christ Jesus far surpasses it. As it says in 2 Corinthians 4:6-7, we have the treasure of "the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Yet we have this treasure "in jars of clay" so as to know "that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us." That the power belongs to God and not us is perhaps the central subject of this passage from Philippians. Whereas the righteousness condemned by Christ comes from obedience to the Law (and ultimately, from us), the righteousness of Christ comes from God. In this way, man is robbed of his glory, and the power comes only from God.

And what is the advantage of the righteousness of Christ over the righteousness that comes from the Law? The Law is the "ministry of death, carved in letters on stone." (2 Corinthians 3:7). But the Gospel is the "ministry of the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:8), by which God has written his laws on our hearts and on our minds (Hebrews 10:16). By the Gospel, we know Christ and the power of his resurrection. We suffer with him, become like him through his death (his death for our sins, not our death for our own sins), and we ultimately attain the resurrection from the dead through him. This is the means by which God grants us eternal life in Christ Jesus, as he promised when he said, "For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:40).