Do not turn back to the Jewish law
1 ① Finally, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. It is not a burden for me to write again the same things, and for you it is safer. 2Beware of the dogs, beware of the bad workers; beware of the circumcised. 3We are the true circumcised people since we serve according to the Spirit of God, and our confidence is in Christ Jesus rather than in our merits.
4I myself do not lack those human qualities in which people have confidence. If some of them seem to be accredited with such qualities, how much more am I! 5I was circumcised when eight days old. I was born of the race of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin; I am a Hebrew, born of Hebrews. With regard to the Law, I am a Pharisee, 6and such was my zeal for the Law that I persecuted the Church. As for being righteous according to the Law, I was blameless.
7But once I found Christ, all those things that I might have considered as profit, I reckoned as loss. 8Still more, everything seems to me as nothing compared with the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord. For his sake I have let everything fall away and I now consider all as garbage, if instead I may gain Christ. 9May I be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the Law, but with the righteousness that God gives to those who believe.
10May I know him and experience the power of his resurrection and share in his sufferings and become like him in his death, 11and attain through this, God willing, the resurrection from the dead!
12I do not believe I have already reached the goal, nor do I consider myself perfect, but I press on till I conquer Christ Jesus, as I have already been conquered by him. 13No, brothers and sisters, I do not claim to have claimed the prize yet. I say only this: forgetting what is behind me, I race forward and run towards the goal, 14my eyes on the prize to which God has called us from above in Christ Jesus. 15Let all of us who claim to be perfect have the same way of thinking, but if there is something on which you differ, God will make it clear to you. 16Meanwhile, let us go forward from the point we have each attained.
17Unite in imitating me, brothers and sisters, and look at those who walk in our way of life. 18For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. I have said it to you many times, and now I repeat it with tears: 19they are heading for ruin; their belly is their god and they feel proud of what should be their shame. They only think of earthly things. 20For us, our citizenship is in heaven, from where we await the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ, the Lord. 21He will transfigure our lowly body, making it like his own body, radiant in Glory, through the power which is his to submit everything to himself.
- Phil 3,1 The discourse of Paul seems to be interrupted here. Paul begins a violent polemic against ill-converted Jews who keep repeating that one must first be faithful to the laws and customs of the Old Testament in order to be a good Christian. Beware of the dogs...! (v. 2) Paul applies to the Jews, proud of being the chosen people, the very insults which they reserved for non-Jews. Jews were sealed by the circumcision, but they mocked people of other religions who incised their skin (1 K 18:28). Through what Paul says concerning his faithfulness to Judaism, we know something of his past. He was born in Tarsus to a Jewish family who had left their country and had settled there, in Greek territory, where they dedicated themselves to business. His parents were wealthy and well-thought-of since they had the dignity and the rights of Roman citizens (see Acts 22:28). Along with Greek culture, Paul received religious education from the Bible and the Jewish people. He saw firsthand the pagan feasts and sacrifices, but was proud of belonging to God's people, of being circumcised and instructed in God's promises to his race. His parents sent him to Jerusalem to study Scripture and the Law with the great masters of his time (see Acts 22:3). He was a model of strict Pharisee. He did not meet Christ but did meet the early Christians. Because he was faithful to the religion of his ancestors, he believed it was necessary to persecute, imprison and even kill those preaching a new doctrine and deceiving (so he though) the people, since they proclaimed a false, defeated and crucified Messiah. At times, Paul must have had doubts (Acts 26:14), and increasingly so, when he felt duty bound to increase repression. The Pharisees were against the death penalty. To hesitate or go backwards was to recognize that God had taken another road than the one where he himself had been the defender of God's cause. Worse still: with Jesus, never more would he be the just man but rather the pardoned sinner. When Jesus forcefully entered into Paul's life, it was a matter of losing all and Paul from then on accepted to regard as garbage all that he had been proud of. Forgetting what is behind me (v. 13). Paul only wanted to forget. Forget his merits and his gains (in the judgment of others) so as to receive more fully the free grace of God; forget what he already knew of God and be available for new experiences. I want to know him. The greatest thing for Christians is not to perform miracles, or to speak in tongues, but to know Christ and meet him as a living person. I want to experience the power of his resurrection. All of us would like to feel the presence of God and to see him in some way, but the way to experience his power which transfigures us is by sharing in Christ's sufferings (2 Cor 1:3-5). All of us who claim to be perfect (v. 15). See what was said in 1 Cor 2:6. Paul speaks ironically again about those who believe they belong to a superior class of Christians, while he would not dare consider himself to be perfect (v.12). Finally, he insists on the resurrection. Because we know that our bodies (or persons) will be raised and that the universe will be renewed, we must put passing things in their place: food, wine, sex - all must stop being the idols that enslave us.
