Ver. 14. I press toward the mark.—“I hasten towards the goal” where the adjudicators stand. For the prize of the high calling.—If the “hollow wraith of dying fame” could lead the athletes to put forth almost superhuman effort, how much more worthy was “the amaranthine crown of glory” (1 Pet. v. 4).
Ver. 15. As many as be perfect.—No longer novices, but having been initiated fully into the most secret mysteries of the faith—“that Christian maturity in which one is no longer a babe in Christ.” The reproachful irony which some detect hardly comports with the general tone of the letter.
Ver. 16. Let us walk by the same rule.—That which had been to them the means of such distinct progress had thus approved itself as the safe and prudent course to follow.
Ver. 17. Followers together of me.—He does not, as some ungracious pastors do, show the steep road to perfection whilst himself staying at the wicket-gate. Like the Good Shepherd, he leadeth his sheep.
Ver. 18. For many walk . . . the enemies of the cross of Christ.—Christians in name only, whose loose interpretations of the perfect law of liberty make it possible to live an animal life. The cross of Christ, symbol of His self-renunciation, should be the place of execution for all fleshly desires of His followers; and, instead of that, these men over whom an apostle laments have made it an opportunity of sensual gratification. They say, “We cannot help Him; He does not heed our help; it is of little consequence how we live.”
Ver. 19. Whose end is destruction.—Beet argues from this that Universalism cannot be true. It must be admitted that St. Paul is speaking of sins of the body, and perhaps is thinking of the ruinous effects of fleshly indulgence. Whose god is their belly.—Against the dominion of appetite all the teachers of mankind are at one. All agree in repudiating the doctrine of the savage:
“I bow to ne’er a god except myself
And to my Belly, first of deities.”—Seeley.
“The self-indulgence which wounds the tender conscience and turns liberty into licence is here condemned” (Lightfoot). Whose glory is in their shame.—Their natures are so utterly perverted that they count that which is their degradation as matter for pride. Like the man whom our Lord describes, such men not only “fear not God, nor regard man,” but can lightly vaunt the fact. Who mind earthly things.—The peculiar form of expression is noteworthy. At these men, “of the earth, earthy,” the apostle stands looking in amazement. His expression reminds us of St. James: “Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord; a doubleminded man, unstable in all his ways” (so the R.V.).
Ver. 20. For our conversation is in heaven.—“Our” is emphatic, contrasting with the “earthly things” just named. “Conversation” is that to which we most readily turn, as the needle trembles to the pole. Our hearts are with our treasure, and that is far away from earthly things. “They that say such things declare plainly that they seek a city;” it is the soul’s “Heimweh,” the yearning for the homeland. We must not understand the words to mean “Our mode of speech is like that in heaven,” nor “Our habit of life is heavenly.” The word for “conversation” means “the commonwealth,” “the greater assembly and Church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven” (Heb. xii. 23). From whence also we look for the Saviour.—From that heaven, “whither the Forerunner is for us entered,” “He shall come in like manner.” Meanwhile we stand in readiness to receive Him. The word for “look for” (R.V. “wait for”) graphically depicts the attitude of waiting.
Ver. 21. Who shall change our vile body.—R.V. much better, “Who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation.” We are not to consider the body as the cause of sin, as something outside the redemption wrought by Christ, “the Saviour of the body.” The fashioning anew will not lose any essential part of the body. As the colours in a kaleidoscope change form at each movement, but are yet always the same, so in the change of the body there will be “transition but no absolute solution of continuity.” The body of our humiliation is the frail tenement in which the exile spirit sojourns (2 Cor. v. 1–8); it is the soon-wearied companion of an eager spirit (Matt. xxvi. 41); it “returns to the dust as it was” (Eccles. xii. 7). That it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body.—R.V. “that it may be conformed to the body of His glory,” as contrasted with the body of His humiliation (Phil. ii. 8), the body in which He tabernacled amongst us (John i. 14). The power whereby He is able to subdue all things.—He has power, not only to raise and glorify the body, but to subdue and renovate all things.