If you were to answer the question: 'what makes you a Christian?' what would you say? Sometimes, when we think about all things that go towards making us a Christian, and what makes us certain that we're right with God, we can get a bit panicky ... but what if I'm not saved? Thinking like this is a pointer that we are relying on a gospel that is fundamentally skewed compared to the true Gospel preached by Paul and the other apostles.
Having encouraged the Philippians to rejoice in gospel partnership, to rejoice when the gospel goes forward, to rejoice in the humility of Christ and humble unity of believers, to rejoice when gospel effort is seen not to be pointless, he now uses the command to rejoice in a new way - he uses it as a safeguard, as a warning, as a protection for the Philippian Christians. We don't often use joy that way. But by rejoicing in the Lord, the young Christians will be guarded against some incredibly destructive pseudo-gospels.
Beware of the Dogs (vv1-6)!
Paul is scathing in his terminology of this particular group in the church. They are not only being told off - they are being villified! So what's the difference here from the people in 1:15-18? Both groups are opposed to Paul. Why, with one group, does he shrug his shoulders and say 'Bring it on,' whilst with the other gets the full-bore holy flame-thrower treatment? The difference is this: the gospel. In Chapter 1, although their motives were wrong, their message was right. On the other hand, here, the message is fundamentally flawed.
It seems that on view is the question: what makes you into the true people of God (if you look at the comparison he makes between v2 and v3, the 'real circumcision,' the issue of true worship and so on point to the concept of the true people of God)? On the one hand, we seem to have the circumcision party of Colossians, Galatians and so on - the group that said, 'Yeah, great, we accept Jesus as saviour and Lord ... but now, you've got to do all of the old Jewish things, too.' So they weren't denying the message of the gospel per se ... rather, they were subtly adding to it - Jesus alone is not enough.
In effect, Paul is describing traditional religious thinking - that Jesus is core, but Jesus is not sufficient. I know that sounds crazy...but it's the way most of us end up thinking, especially in the conservative church. We try to catch God's eye with our great service in the church, our active prayer life, our daily quiet times. We end up thinking we're doing God a favour by being on His team. That's the state of our hearts! And for this type of thinking, Paul reserves very strong words!
So what do the real people of God look like? They worship in the Spirit of God (look at John 4 for more discussion of this), they cheer in Jesus rather than anything else, and they are not persuaded by outward things of their rightness with God.
Paul goes on to list five ways that, if we were playing the game of boasting in outward things, he could win hands down. If we were playing 'Righteousness Top Trumps,' you would want the Paul card. And these five ways of boasting are often ways we boast, too!
- Tradition and outward signs of membership of the people of God
- Heritage of connection with the people of God
- Outstanding knowledge of the bible and personal ministry
- White-hot passion for God's reputation
- Studious moral obedience
In Christ Alone (vv7-9)
The main issue for the people of God is this - how can we be made right with God. As Mark Driscoll once said ... the gospel starts with the idea, 'God hates you and it's going to go really, really bad [for you] for a very long time.' How can we get God's anger turned away from us? Well, it used to be that Paul used the things listed above to convince himself that he was right with God. If you can imagine a balance sheet where the 'gain' column contains things that counted towards you being right with God, and the 'loss' column contained things that detract from that, then he had the above things in the 'gain' column.
But then Jesus blasted onto his balance sheet.
And Jesus went straight into the gain column ... and if Paul tried to keep the old things on the balance sheet, they'd not add on in the gain column. Rather, they'd detract from his status with God. Because if he did that, he'd be saying to God: God, I don't want you to look at me and see Jesus in all his perfection, and sacraficial efficiency. I want you to see me and my good bits. Problem: if we ask God to see me and my good bits, he'll also see my sinful heart, and I'll get punished for that. I can't be selective - either I ask God to look at me and see Jesus (that's what 'righteousness by faith' seems to mean), or I can ask God to look at me, and hope (vainly) that I'll match up, somehow. God either sees sinful me or sinless Jesus.
So living with Jesus on the balance sheet means everything else needs to get stripped off the balance sheet - none of the other other things should be kept on. Here are the three options:
- Ignore Jesus, keep my balance sheet with my 'good stuff' on the gain column. This is living as a secular non-Christian.
- Accept Jesus onto my balance sheet, but try to keep my good stuff in the gain column, too. This is living as a religious non-Christian.
- Accept Jesus onto my balance sheet, recognise he is hyper-valuable, and so boot every other thing that I might boast of, that I might cheer in, off the sheet in tota, onto the separate sheet entitled 'Dogfood.' This is living as a Christian.
Faith in Jesus makes this kind of living accessible. That means staking my eternity that Jesus has done it all - not a belt and braces approach, not a Jesus-plus approach. Staking my eternity that what God says is true and will happen - those who take Jesus onto their balance sheet will get the benefit of eternity as right with God.
Clear sky thinking (vv10-11)
The last couple of verses hide some incredible truths. Paul warns us that in the light of this instruction regarding living with Jesus on our life's balance sheet, we ought to have the clouds in our thinking blown away. He says three things:
- Justification this way gives me a clear relationship with Jesus that I can enjoy right now
- Relationship with Jesus now means that I have a clear pattern of life to emulate and anticipate - suffering and maybe even death - for the moment
- This pattern of life is emulated because our main desire is to get to the same destination as Jesus any way we possibly can - the bodily resurrection of the dead later, which I can long for now.
Unfortunately, this is uncomfortable teaching. If I examine my heart, when I talk about discipleship, and use phrasiology like 'I want to be more like Jesus,' I mean that I want to be like Jesus in his ability to teach, to be like Jesus in his authority, to be like Jesus in his ultimate victory. In a sense, this is a kind of 'over-realised eschatology' - I want what Jesus got later, whilst ignoring what his life looked like first. If I say I want to be more like Jesus, I have to be prepared for my life to map more and more closely onto his. My pattern of life must be expected to look more an more like his pattern of life.
This is something that is backed up by the teaching of Jesus ('...take up your cross and follow me,'), by the teaching of the New Testament, and by the empirical proof of the life of the great saints (the martyrdom of the apostles, the life and death of the likes of Stephen and Paul). So in terms of discipleship ... do I really want to be like Jesus? Because that's what I need to pursue with the white-hot zeal for Jesus if I want to get to that final destination of resurrection...
That's living with Jesus on the balance sheet.
STOP PRESS - if you want to download the handout, go here.
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