Ver. 2. Emphatic Warnings against False Teachers—
- Because of their snarling methods and insatiable greed.—“Beware of dogs.”
- Because of their wicked and destructive policy.—“Beware of evil workers.”
- Because their zeal is wholly misdirected and injurious.—“Beware of the concision.”
Ver. 3. Spiritual Circumcision—
- Is an inward and conscious spiritual change.—“For we are the circumcision.”
- While reverently using outward forms of worship is superior to them.—“Which worship God in the Spirit.”
- Finds its joy in living union with Christ.—“And rejoice in Christ Jesus.”
- Repudiates all ordinances that divert from Christ.—“And have no confidence in the flesh.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Verses 4–8.
External Religionism incomparable with the True Knowledge of Christ.
I. The highest example of external religionism affords no ground for confident boasting (vers. 4–6).—External religionism had its most complete embodiment in Paul. He was its most zealous devotee, its ablest champion. These verses describe the best eulogy that can be given of the observer of external rites. By birth, lineage, training, ability, consistency of character, and sincerity of aim, Paul was an ideal Jew, a model all his countrymen might aspire to copy. If there was ground for boasting, no one had a greater right than he. He needed no Christ, no Saviour; he was well able to look after himself. But one day the discovery came that all this glorying was vain; instead of gaining salvation he was farther from it than ever, and in danger of losing everything. Religious progress is often more apparent than real. When Captain Parry and his party were in search of the North Pole, after travelling several days with sledges over a vast field of ice, on taking a careful observation of the pole-star, the painful discovery was made that, while they were apparently advancing towards the pole, the ice-field on which they were travelling was drifting to the south, and bringing them nearer to the verge, not of the pole, but of destruction.
II. The supposed gains of external religionism are for Christ’s sake esteemed as loss.—“But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ” (ver. 7). Not losses, compared with the plural of gains; but all the supposed gains are treated as one great loss, and this after the most careful scrutiny and calculation. “I counted loss.” The swelling sum of fancied virtues, painfully gathered and fondly and proudly contemplated, vanishes into nothing at one stroke of the discriminating pen. All that was prized as valuable, and as the all of personal possession, is regarded as dross, because of Christ. They did not help him to win Christ, but to lose Him; the more he gained in self-righteousness the more he lost of Christ. It was not only profitless, but productive of positive loss.
III. The surpassing excellency of the knowledge of Christ renders external religionism utterly worthless.—“I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord; . . . and do count them but dung [refuse], that I may win Christ” (ver. 8). The gains were: circumcision performed without any deviation from legal time or method; membership in the house of Israel, and connection with one of its most honoured tribes; descent from a long line of pure-blood ancestry; adherence to a sect whose prominent distinction was the observance of the old statutes; earnest and uncompromising hostility to a community accused of undermining the authority of the Mosaic code, and a merit based on blameless obedience to the law. These once gloried and confided in were counted as a loss, for the sake of a superior gain in the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. He was no loser by the loss he had willingly made, for the object of knowledge was the Divine Saviour. Is it not super-eminent knowledge to know Him as the Christ; to know Him as Jesus, not because he wears our nature, but because we feel His human heart throbbing in unison with ours under trial and sorrow; to know Him as Lord, not simply because He wears a crown and wields a sceptre, but because we bow to His loving rule and gather the spoils of the victory which He has won and secured? The apostle made a just calculation, for neither ritualism, nor Israelitism, nor Pharasaism, nor zealotism, nor legalism could bring him those blessing with which the knowledge of Christ was connected; nay, until they were held as loss this gain of gains could not be acquired (Eadie). As with the two scales of a balance, writes Rieger, when one rises the other falls, and what I add to one diminishes the relative weight of the other; so as one adds to himself he takes away from the pre-eminence which the knowledge of Christ should have. What he concedes to Christ makes him willing to abase himself, to resign all confidence in His own works. Therefore the sharp expressions, “to count as loss, as dung,” become in experience not too severe; for to reject the grace of Christ, to regard the great plan of God in sending His Son as fruitless, were indeed far more terrible.
Lessons.—1. The highest kind and supreme end of all knowledge is the knowledge of Christ. 2. True religion is the spiritual knowledge of Christ. 3. Religion without Christ is an empty form.