Additional Notes §20
§20 Paul’s Ambition (Phil. 3:12–14)
Whatever others may claim for themselves, Paul knows that he has not attained perfection yet. So long as mortal life lasts, there is further progress to be made. Not until the end of the race is the prize awarded.
3:12 / Paul now passes from the language of accountancy to that of athletic endeavor (cf. 2:16). He is running a race; he has not yet breasted the tape or won the prize, and he must keep on running until he does so. Some of his converts elsewhere imagined that they had attained perfection and entered into their kingly glory already: Paul tells them ironically that he wishes their claim were true, because then it would be true for him as well, but he knows that he is still exerting himself amid the dust and heat (1 Cor. 4:8–13). If some of his Philippian friends are tempted to make similarly premature claims of spiritual achievement, what he now says may be helpful to them. He illustrates the true nature of Christian existence on earth by reference to himself. His growing knowledge of Christ, his sharing here and now both in his sufferings and in the power of his risen life, are bringing him nearer the goal, but so long as he is in the body, that goal still lies ahead. He will never in this life attain perfection in the sense that no further spiritual progress is possible and nothing is left to aim at beyond the point he has reached. The purpose for which Christ Jesus took hold of him on the Damascus road remains for Paul to grasp.
Paul recalls his conversion as the occasion on which a powerful hand was laid on his shoulder, turning him right round in his tracks, and a voice that brooked no refusal spoke in his ear: “You must come along with me.” Paul was conscripted into the service of Christ, but never was there a more willing conscript. The passion of his life from that hour on was to serve this new Master and fulfill the purpose for which he had conscripted him—to “lay hold on that,” as he put it, “for which also I was laid hold on by Jesus Christ” (ASV). Every phase of Paul’s subsequent life and action, every element in his understanding and preaching of the gospel, can be traced back to the revelation of Jesus Christ that was granted to him there and then.
3:13 / No indeed, he says, I do not imagine that I have gained perfection yet or fully attained the purpose for which I was summoned into the service of Christ; that is why I still press on. He speaks of himself as a runner with but one object in view: to finish the race and win the prize. A competitor in a race does not look over his or her shoulder to see how much ground has been covered already or how rivals are getting on: the runner keeps eyes fixed on the winning post. What is behind is that part of the race that has been completed so far, but it will not help a runner to outstrip the others for the first nine-tenths of the way only to falter and be overtaken in the last lap.
When Paul did contemplate what he had achieved in apostolic service, it was only to reinforce his resolution to go on as he had begun. When he recorded the completion of his ministry “from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum,” it was to announce his plan to travel to Spain and repeat in the western Mediterranean the program he had accomplished in the eastern Mediterranean. So long as opportunity offered “to preach the gospel where Christ was not known,” his task remained unfinished (Rom. 15:19–24).
3:14 / I press on toward the goal, he says, using a noun (Gk. skopos) not found elsewhere in the NT. There is a prize to be awarded, and he aims to secure it; he looks forward to hearing the president of the games call him up to his chair to receive it. On a special occasion in Rome this call might come from the emperor himself; how proudly the successful athlete would obey the summons and step up to the imperial box to accept the award! For Paul, the president of the games was none other than his Lord; the prize was that for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus, or, more simply, “the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (RSV). In similar language Paul can speak later of “the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day” (2 Tim. 4:8).
The word translated prize (Gk. brabeion) is used in 1 Corinthians 9:24, “all the runners run, but only one gets the prize.” But there is no such exclusiveness about this prize; it will be given, as Paul goes on to say about the wreath of victory in 2 Timothy 4:8, “not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.” Paul aims to win his prize, but there is a prize for everyone who finishes this race; Paul recommends his example to his readers (1 Cor. 9:24), so that they may make his ambition their own.
And what can the prize be but that final gaining of Christ for the sake of which, as Paul has said, everything else is well lost?
3:12 / That I have already obtained (elabon); the verb is transitive, but the object is not expressed. The object is the ambition that he has stated at length in vv. 8–11, the ultimate and complete “gaining” of Christ, not to be distinguished from the prize of which he goes on to speak.
Been made perfect: “been perfected” (teteleiōmai). It may be that Paul is borrowing a term from the mystery religions (cf. 4:12), in which the person admitted to the highest grade was said to have been “perfected”; but as he uses it, the word has no mystery connotation here. Nor is he thinking primarily of his coming martyrdom, although Ignatius (To the Ephesians 3:1) uses a synonymous term as he contemplates exposure to the wild beasts in the arena: “I have not yet been perfected [apērtismai] in Jesus Christ,” he says; but he welcomes the prospect of martyrdom, whatever form it may take, “only that I may attain [epitychō] to Jesus Christ” (To the Romans 5:3). Paul’s outlook is saner: the perfection that he has not yet reached will be his when the time comes for him “to depart and be with Christ” (1:23).
Before or have already been made perfect the manuscripts P46 and D*, with Irenaeus (Latin translation) and Ambrosiaster, insert the clause “or have already been justified” (dedikaiōmai). This would be an un-Pauline use of the verb “justify”: Paul knew that together with all believers in Christ he had been “justified through faith” (Rom. 5:1, etc.; cf. v. 9 above). It resembles rather the Ignatian use: Ignatius, speaking of the hardships endured by him on his way to Rome, says, “I am not hereby justified” (dedikaiōmai), implying that he will at last be justified when he has undergone a martyr’s death (To the Romans 5:1).
I press on: Gk. diōkō; “I pursue,” “I follow on.”
To take hold of that for which …: Gk. ei kai katalabō, “if indeed I may lay hold of …”; the use of ei (“if”) to introduce a clause of purpose is similar to that in v. 11, “in hope that …” (Gk. ei pōs). The antecedent of for which is not expressed in the original, and is probably something like “the purpose,” in keeping with eph’ hō, “with a view to which.”
Christ Jesus took hold of me: Gk. katelēmphthēn hypo Christou Iēsou, “I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.” The translator must find an appropriate verb to cover both senses of katalambanein (katalabō … katelēmphthēn). It is difficult to improve on the KJV choice of the verb “apprehend.” For the significance of Paul’s experience of being “apprehended by Christ Jesus” in relation to his subsequent ministry see J. Dupont, “The Conversion of Paul, and Its Influence on his Understanding of Salvation by Faith,” in W. W. Gasque and R. P. Martin, eds., Apostolic History and the Gospel, pp. 176–94; G. Bornkamm, “The Revelation of Christ to Paul on the Damascus Road and Paul’s Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation,” in R. Banks, ed., Reconciliation and Hope, pp. 90–103; S. Kim, The Origin of Paul’s Gospel.
3:13 / There is a variant reading “not” (ou) for not … yet (oupō). Even though not … yet has early and wide attestation, it is more likely to have replaced an original not than vice versa.
3:14 / The goal or skopos was so called because the competitor kept his eye fixed on it (skopein, “look”). The “upward call” to the victor came in Greek contests from the agōnothetēs, in the Panhellenic games (like those at Olympia) from the hellēnodikai.