Additional Notes §12
§12 Paul’s Hope for the Philippians (Phil. 2:14–16)
The Philippians’ obedience, the working out of their salvation, depended very largely on the maintenance of love and harmony within their community. If love and harmony were maintained, their witness in the pagan environment would be effective; and Paul could look forward with confidence to the time when he would be called upon to render an account of his stewardship in respect to them.
2:14 / God’s purpose for his people can be fulfilled only if they live together in unity and do everything without complaining or arguing. This language is borrowed from OT descriptions of the generation of Israelites that went through the wilderness under Moses’ leadership after the deliverance from Egypt. Repeatedly they complained about their hardships and said they should never have left Egypt (Num. 11:1–6; 14:1–4; 20:2; 21:4, 5). Moses described them as “a warped and crooked generation” (Deut. 32:5, quoted in v. 15 below), “a perverse generation, children who are unfaithful” (Deut. 32:20).
2:15 / The followers of Christ should not be like that wilderness generation. Writing to his Corinthian converts, Paul had to warn them seriously against following such a disastrous example and incurring the same judgment: they must “not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel” (1 Cor. 10:10). But, while an admonition to pursue a contented and harmonious way of life can never come amiss, Paul knows that his Philippian friends are in better shape than that. It is not they, but their pagan neighbors, who can be described as a crooked and depraved generation. It is for the Philippian Christians to set the surrounding world a better example, by showing themselves blameless and pure, children of God, reflecting their Father’s character, people against whose way of life no finger of reproach can be pointed. It was this that Jesus had in mind for his disciples when he called them “the salt of the earth” and urged them, by their openhanded goodness, to become true children of their Father in heaven, perfect as he is perfect (Matt. 5:13, 45, 48). The people of the wilderness generation, by contrast, were repudiated as “no longer his children” (Deut. 32:5).
Jesus compared his followers not only to salt but also to “the light of the world” (Matt. 5:14–16). Paul takes up this figure when he encourages the Philippian Christians to shine among their pagan neighbors like stars in the universe. The word he uses means “luminaries” (Gk. phōstēres); it is used in the Greek version of Genesis 1:14–19 of the sun, moon, and stars that the Creator placed in the vault of heaven on the fourth day. These luminaries do not shine for their own sake; they shine to provide light for all the world. The same should be true of Christians: they live for the sake of others. The church has been called a society that exists for the benefit of nonmembers.
The universe: literally “the world” (Gk. kosmos), used in the same sense as in John 3:19 and 12:46, where Jesus speaks of his having “come into the world as a light” (cf. also John 1:9; 8:12; 9:5).
2:16 / Changing from figurative to literal wording, Paul tells them that their business is to hold out to their neighbors the word of life. They are to present the gospel by the way they live as well as by the words they speak. No one would take their message seriously if their way of life was at variance with it. But if they lived in such a way that their neighbors asked what enabled them to lead such blameless and pure lives, then they could tell them of the word of life that had revolutionized their attitude and conduct.
The word of life is so called because it proclaims the true life that is found in Christ; it tells how “the righteous will live by faith” (Rom. 1:17; Gal. 3:11, quoting Hab. 2:4). The gospel that the apostles are commissioned to preach comprises “the full message of this new life” (Acts 5:20)—an expression synonymous with “this message of salvation” (Acts 13:26). Elsewhere Paul refers to this life as “eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord,” which is God’s free gift to believers (Rom. 6:23); by “eternal life” is meant the life of the age to come (the resurrection age), received and enjoyed by believers here and now through their participation in the risen life of Christ.
Paul ordered his life in the light of the coming day of Christ, when, as he knew, his apostolic service would be reviewed. He said, “I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court” because, as he said “it is the Lord who judges me” (1 Cor. 4:3, 4). Time and again he makes it clear that he will face the day of review with confidence if his converts stand firm and live so as to bring credit to the gospel he delivered to them. When he faces the Lord from whom he received his commission on the Damascus road, he hopes that it will be sufficient for him to point to his converts and invite the Lord to assess the quality of his service by the quality of their lives. So he and his colleagues can describe the Christians of Thessalonica as “our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes” (1 Thess. 2:19). In similar vein he now assures his friends in Philippi that, if they maintain their Christian witness, he may boast on the day of Christ that he did not run or labor for nothing.
The word run is an instance of Paul’s proneness to use athletic language to describe his ministry. Similarly in Galatians 2:2 he states, “for fear that I was running or had run my race in vain.” (See also 1 Cor. 9:24–27.) The word here used for labor implies toil or strenuous exertion; Paul uses it again in Gal. 4:11 to express the idea of toiling in vain. “I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.”
For the day of Christ see 1:6, 10, with comments; for the association of pride or boasting with that day see 1:26 with comments.
2:14 / W. Schmithals considers that the warning against complaining or arguing is intelligible only as a reference to “the dissension brought into the community by the false teachers” (Paul and the Gnostics, p. 74). But it is easy to think of a great variety of other causes that could lead to complaining or arguing. Compare also the exhortations of 4:1–3, 8–9.
2:15 / There is a striking similarity between so that you may become (hina genēsthe) … children of God and the words in the Sermon on the Mount: “that you may be (hopōs genēsthe) sons of your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:45). The word translated without fault here in NIV is Gk. amōma, “without blemish” (cf. Eph. 1:4; 5:27; Col. 1:22, etc.), used in LXX specially with reference to sacrificial animals. See below.
A crooked and depraved generation: Gk. geneas skolias kai diestrammenēs, from Deut. 32:5, where the wilderness generation is so described. The Israelites of that generation are said, in the same sentence, to be tekna mōmēta, “blemished (blameworthy) children”; there is a deliberate contrast here in tekna … amōma, “unblemished (blameless) children.” See above.
In which you shine like stars: since the verb is in the middle or passive voice (phainesthe), not the active phainete, which can well mean “you shine,” “you give light”), it has been argued (e.g., by E. Lohmeyer, ad loc.), that it means “you appear (as lights in the world).” But the middle or passive is also attested with the meaning “shine” and in association with phōstēres (“luminaries”) “shine” is an appropriate rendering here. In Dan. 12:3 it is said that, in the resurrection age, “Those who are wise [who had borne the brunt of persecution] will shine like the brightness of the heavens [LXX: phanousin hōs phōstēres tou ouranou, ‘will shine like luminaries of heaven’]; and those who lead many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever.” But now those who share in Christ’s risen life anticipate the ministry of the resurrection age and bear their shining witness already. For the designation “sons of light” or “children of light” applied to followers of Christ cf. Luke 16:8; John 12:36; Eph. 5:8; 1 Thess. 5:5.
2:16 / That I may boast: Gk. eis kauchēma emoi, “for a (ground of) boasting for me”; cf. the similar use of the noun kauchēma in 1:26, to kauchēma hymōn, “your (ground of) boasting.”
That that I did not run or labor for nothing: O. Bauernfeind suggests, in the light of Gal. 2:2, that the expression “running in vain” (eis kenon trechein) “was a common use of the apostle’s” (TDNT, vol. 8, p. 231, s.v. “trechō”). The word translated labor (kopian) is a favorite of his for describing Christian service, whether his own or that of others (cf. Rom. 16:6, 12; 1 Cor. 4:12; 15:10; 16:16; Gal. 4:11; Col. 1:29; 1 Thess. 5:12); its implication of resulting weariness is conveyed in John 4:6, where Jesus at noonday sits down by Jacob’s well because he is “tired” (kekopiakōs) by his journey.