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Printer Friendly VersionKnowing Christ was the burning core of Paul’s religion.
We have no evidence that Paul ever saw, let alone met, the earthly Jesus,
but that was not what he meant anyway. It is possible to see and meet someone,
and still not know them. To Paul, knowing Christ did not mean satisfying his
curiosity about what Jesus looked like, the color of his eyes and hair, his
manner of speaking, and so on. Rather it meant knowing Christ in spiritual
communion, knowing his heart, sharing his faith, knowing him in the fellowship
of submission and obedience and, in consequence, becoming like him.
Why was this so important to Paul? Because before his encounter
with Christ on the Damascus road, he had lived on an entirely different basis:
a basis which he calls “confidence in the flesh” (3). This meant
several things for Paul. For one thing, it meant confidence in his pedigree:
a member of the royal tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews. For another,
it meant confidence in his performance: a Pharisee, a persecutor of the church,
blameless in his observance of the Law. Yet for all that, he came to conclude
that it was only after he found Christ that circumcision came to have its
real meaning for him: the meaning which the Old Testament said it had, namely
circumcision of the heart (Deuteronomy 30:6; Jeremiah 4:4, 9:25f). This permitted
only one conclusion: that faith in Christ was what made one a member of the
covenant. This could have only one consequence: placing Christ at the center
of Paul’s religion.
Seeking to know Christ thus became the controlling passion of
Paul’s life. In the epistle lesson he lays bare not only the intense
conviction which powered this quest, but some of the specific ways in which
he longed to know Christ, together with the reasons for them.
First, he wanted to know Christ in justifying faith(9). The
central concern of the religious life is: How can a sinner be right with God?
Paul places the alternatives in start contrast, with the constituent elements
set out opposite each other to make the contrast clear. One possibility is
“having a righteousness of my own that comes from the Law”, the
other is “one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from
God based on faith.”
The great human desire is to have a righteousness “of our
own”. It seems to be so secure. It leaves us in control. It avoids dependence
on anyone else. Paul had tried that, and, as he tells us in verse 4-6, had
many reasons to be self-confident. But when he met Christ, he discarded it
all as worthless lumber, because the only righteousness which is valid with
God is the righteousness which comes from God as a gift.
John Wesley illustrates Paul’s point well. He tells us
that, in his earliest years, he depended for his acceptance with God on three
things. First, on not being as bad as other people. Second, on having what
he quaintly calls “a kindness for religion”. And third, on reading
the Bible, going to church and saying his prayers. But it was only in his
heart-warming experience in an upper room on Aldersgate Street, London as
he was listening to someone read Luther on the change God works in the heart
through faith that “I felt my heart strangely warmed, I felt I did trust
in Christ, Christ alone for salvation and an assurance was given me that he
had taken away my sins, even mine, and redeemed me from the law of sin and
death.” Wesley had come to understand Paul perfectly.
Not only did Paul want to know Christ in justifying faith; he
also wanted to know him in indwelling presence (10). This picks up and follows
on from Paul’s understanding of justifying faith. Sometimes this is spoken
of strictly as a relationship: having a right standing before God, being pronounced
or accounted as being right. But Paul’s understanding is deeper than
this. He understands justification as involving union with Christ, being “found
in him” (9). Building on this he now proceeds to mark out a deeper dimension
in which he wishes to know Christ. This may be called knowing Christ in indwelling
presence, though ‘living identification’ would not be an inapt descriptor
either.
What Paul means overall is that he wants to share the whole
of Christ’s life: to live as Christ lived, to die as Christ died, to
have the resurrection power of Christ coursing through his being. It is the
last which he mentions first (10). He probably does so because it is the resurrection
power at work in believers which enables them to live a new kind of life (Romans
6:4). But this resurrection life by definition is a resurrection from death:
specifically, death to sin in which the power of sin was broken so that we
are no longer held in its slavery (Romans 6:6-7). Paul desires, then, to share
Christ’s sufferings that is to say, to have Christ’s cross transposed
into his own life so that he may experience its emancipating power by bringing
death to sin. For Paul to be ‘in Christ’ meant being ‘like
Christ’.
Finally, Paul longed to know Christ in resurrection power: “If somehow
I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (11). Clearly, it is a different
aspect of the resurrection of which he is speaking here than in the previous
verse. There he was speaking of the resurrection of the soul from sin in the
present; here he is speaking of the resurrection of the body at the end of
the age.
There is something wistful about Paul’s use of the word
“somehow”. It means something like “if perhaps” or “if
by any means”, and introduces a statement of purpose which is not altogether
within the power of the speaker. In Romans 1:10 he uses it in reference to
his desire to visit the church in Rome. Paul’s uncertainty does not spring
from doubt, but from the awareness that he cannot accomplish this on his own.
It is only by knowing Christ and being ‘in him’ that it is possible.
The Hebrew mind – and Paul was “a Hebrew of Hebrews”
– repelled the idea of death. “What profit is there in my death,
if I go down to the Pit?” asks the psalmist. “Will the dust praise
you? Will it tell of your faithfulness?” (Psalm 30:9). But for Paul the
Christian a great change had taken place. Christ had been raised from the
dead. His tomb was empty on the third day. And all those united with him by
faith would be raised bodily when he returned on the last day.
Once I found myself listening in to a conversation between two
elderly Christian women. They were discussing the life to come and what it
would be like. They agreed that there were many things about it which they
did not know. And then, in spontaneous unison, they said: “It will be
better than this!” There is indeed, much about the life of heaven which
we do not know. But we do know that it will be better, far better, far better
than all our imaginings, than anything we have known on earth. Paul yearned
that he would be among those who attained it, and he knew that “knowing
Christ” was the key.
Throughout the passage he says that he wants to be “in Christ”, to “gain Christ”, to “know Christ.” Does he mean that at the time he was writing he was not “in Christ” and did not “know him”? Assuredly not. But there are two factors which probably account for his speaking in this way. One is that, some aspects of knowing Christ plainly lie in the future. The resurrection of the body is one. Another is that there seem to have been those in the Philippian church who believed that they had already received the whole of salvation, resurrection included. Paul therefore goes on to disclaim any such thing: “Not that I have already obtained this” (12); “I do not consider that I have made it my own” (13); “I press on toward the goal” (14). But he affirms that there is a completeness, a fulfillment, a perfection to the saving work of God in the present (15); and he urges the Philippians to share that attitude which he shares. The secret of it, from beginning to end, is the same: knowing Christ.