Additional Notes §21
§21 Spiritual Maturity (Phil. 3:15–16)
Paul knows that not all his friends assess Christian issues as he himself does. He does not force his own assessment on them, but gives them helpful advice.
3:15 / NIV is right in rendering teleioi (“perfect”) as mature here. It has been widely maintained that the reference is to those who claimed to have attained perfection in the sense that Paul has just disclaimed for himself (v. 13). But Paul now includes himself among the “perfect” just as in Romans 15:1 he includes himself among the “strong” (“we who are strong”). The repetition of a word or its derivative in a different sense within a short interval is a common literary phenomenon. There is no need to write the word in its present occurrence within quotation marks, as though Paul were not committing himself to its use. To be sure, if any of his readers claimed to be perfect in a sense that could not be achieved short of the day of Christ, there may be a word of admonition for them: it was a mark of the mature to recognize that such perfection was unattainable during mortal life.
Let no man think that sudden in a minute
All is accomplished and the work is done;
Though with thine earliest dawn thou shouldst begin it
Scarce were it ended in thy setting sun.
(F. W. H. Myers, “Saint Paul”)
But more positively, the Christ-centered ambition expressed by Paul should characterize every mature believer. No doubt Paul’s ambition, from the moment of his conversion, was to serve Christ and “be found in him”; but it took time for him to appreciate by experience what was involved in the pursuit of this ambition. Having attained spiritual maturity, however, he “no longer frets about weaknesses, failures and frustrations,” whether in himself or in others (Montefiore, Paul the Apostle, p. 30).
If some of Paul’s readers felt bound to admit that they could not express their ambition or attitude in Paul’s terms, let them not despair or resign themselves to eking out a second-rate Christian existence. Let the matter be committed to God, and that too God will make clear to you. Paul will not scold them or express disappointment that they have made such poor progress. He aims rather to encourage them.
That too (kai touto) God will make clear to you. On the supposition that Paul is taking issue with those who claimed a premature perfection, the “too” might mean that, over and above the “visions and revelations” they boasted of having received (cf. 2 Cor. 12:1), there were matters of practical Christian living that they required to have revealed to them. Otherwise, the point may be that, since they have accepted the divine revelation that leads to the attitude characteristic of spiritual maturity, they may trust God to give them whatever further revelation is necessary to remove any remaining inadequacies or inconsistencies in their Christian outlook.
3:16 / If what we have already attained are the guidelines for Christian living which Paul habitually recommended to his converts—if they are, as he puts it elsewhere, “my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church” (1 Cor. 4:17)—then let them continue to follow Paul’s “way” as their rule of life, and the desired spiritual growth will manifest itself. To those who walk in the light they already have, more light will be given.
There is no word in the Greek text here corresponding to “rule”; those versions which add it may have been influenced (and properly so) by the similar wording of Galatians 6:16, where the noun “rule” (Gk. kanōn) does occur: “Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule.”
To the question how this reference to a “rule” can be squared with Paul’s denial of any place for law in Christian life, let it be said that (1) this “rule” does not consist of regulations; it has rather the nature of guidelines or principles, and (2) over against “law” in the legal sense Paul sets “the law of Christ”—that is, the way of life exemplified by Christ and recorded for the imitation of his followers. The rule implied here, then, embraces the principles of living involved in “the law of Christ,” among which the carrying of one another’s burdens takes a leading place (Gal. 6:2). Paul encourages the Philippian Christians to continue to march forward as a united community, shoulder to shoulder, according to the teaching which they had received from him since first he brought them the gospel.
3:15 / Mature: Gk. teleioi, “perfect.” W. Lütgert (Die Vollkommenen im Philipperbrief und die Enthusiasten in Thessalonich, p. 19), W. Schmithals (Paul and the Gnostics, pp. 99–104), and others take the people so designated to be those of a Gnosticizing tendency, like the self-styled “spiritual persons” (pneumatikoi) at Corinth (cf. 1 Cor. 2:13, 15; 3:1, etc.). According to them, Paul’s ostensible association of himself with them in the first person plural is at most a captatio benevolentiae. This is a strained interpretation of his words.
Should take such a view of things: Gk. touto phronōmen, “let us be thus minded.” In Aleph, L, and a few other manuscripts the indicative phronoumen is read: “we are thus minded” (but this variant has no claim to serious consideration). The attitude in question is explained by Chrysostom as readiness to “forget what is behind”; he adds, playing on the double sense of “perfect” (teleios): “it is the mark of one who is perfect not to consider himself perfect” (Homilies on Philippians, 12). To think differently may mean to have a wrong attitude; the adverb heterōs “seems to have the meaning ‘amiss’ ” (J. B. Lightfoot, ad loc.).
God will make clear: lit., “will reveal” (Gk. apokalypsei). Gk. kai touto (that too) might mean “this indeed,” as though the sense were: “This is the revelation you need; not revelations as understood in Gnosticizing schools” (cf. Schmithals, Paul and the Gnostics, p. 104).
3:16 / Let us live up to: lit., “let us march by the same (rule as we have followed) to the point we have already reached” (eis ho ephthasamen). With tō autō (“the same”) several witnesses read kanoni (“rule”), but the weight of the evidence favors its omission (although it represents the implied meaning). Cf. Gal. 6:16, “as many as will march by this rule” (Gk. hosoi tō kanoni toutō stoichēsousin), the influence of which is probably to be discerned in those authorities that add “rule” (kanoni) here. The verb stoichein (rendered live up to here in NIV) means “stand in line” or “march in line”; the implication is that this is not a matter of individual attainment, but one in which the whole community should move forward together.