Philippians 3:10

10. That I may know him] In order to know Him. For the construction, cp. e.g. 1Co_10:13.—Observe the sequence of thought. He embraces “the righteousness which is of God on terms of faith,” and renounces “a righteousness of his own” as a means to the end here stated—the spiritual knowledge of Christ and of His power to sanctify and glorify by assimilation to Himself. In order to that end, he thankfully “submits Himself to the righteousness of God” (Rom_10:3; cp. 1Pe_1:2); accepts the Divine justification for the merit’s sake of Jesus Christ alone; knowing, with the intuition of a soul enlightened by grace, that in such submission lies the secret of such assimilation. Welcoming Christ as his one ground of peace with God, he not only enters at the same time on spiritual contact with Christ as Life from God, but also gets such a view of himself and his Redeemer as to affect profoundly his whole intercourse with Christ, and the effects of that intercourse on his being.

Php_3:10 is thus by no means a restatement of Php_3:9. It gives another range of thought and truth, in deep and strong connexion. To use a convenient classification, Php_3:9 deals with Justification, Php_3:10 with Sanctification in relation to it.

“That I may know Him”:—the Greek seems to imply a decisive act of knowledge rather than a process. A lifelong process is sure to result from the act; for the Object of the act “passeth knowledge” (Eph_3:19). But the act, the decisive getting acquainted with what Christ is, is in immediate view. A far-reaching insight into Him in His glory of grace has a natural connexion with the spiritual act of submissive faith in Him as our Sacrifice and Righteousness. Cp. Joh_6:56.

On this “knowledge” of recognition and intuition, cp. Php_3:8, and notes.

the power of his resurrection] A phrase difficult to exhaust in exposition. The Lord’s Resurrection is spiritually powerful as (a) evidencing the justification of believers (Rom_4:24-25, and by all means cp. 1Co_15:14; 1Co_15:17-18); as (b) assuring them of their own bodily resurrection (1Co_15:20, &c.; 1Th_4:14); and yet more as (c) being that which constituted Him actually the life-giving Second Adam, the Giver of the Spirit who unites the members to Him the Vital Head (Joh_7:39; Joh_20:22; Act_2:33; cp. Eph_4:4-16). This latter aspect of truth is prominent in the Epistles to Ephesus and Colossæ, written at nearly the same period of St Paul’s apostolic work; and we have here, very probably, a passing hint of what is unfolded there. The thought of the Lord’s Resurrection is suggested here to his mind by the thought, not expressed but implied in the previous context, of the Atoning Death on which it followed as the Divine result.

This passage indicates the great truth that while our acceptance in Christ is always based upon His propitiatory work for us, our power for service and endurance in His name is vitally connected with His life as the Risen One, made ours by the Holy Spirit.

Cp. further Rom_5:10; Rom_6:4-11; Rom_7:4; Rom_8:11; 2Co_4:10; Eph_2:6; Col_3:1-4; Heb_13:20-21.

the fellowship of his sufferings] Entrance, in measure, into His experience as the Sufferer. The thought recurs to the Cross, but in connexion now with Example, not with Atonement. St Paul deals with the fact that the Lord who has redeemed him has done it at the severest cost of pain; and that a moral and spiritual necessity calls His redeemed ones, who are united vitally to Him, to “carry the cross,” in their measure, for His sake, in His track, and by His Spirit’s power. And he implies that this cross bearing, whatever is its special form, this acceptance of affliction of any sort as for and from Him, is a deep secret of entrance into spiritual intimacy with Christ; into “knowledge of Him.” Cp. further Rom_8:17; Rom_8:37; 2Co_1:5; 2Co_4:11; 2Co_12:9-10; Col_1:24; 2Ti_2:12; 1Pe_4:13; Rev_3:10.

being made conformable] Better, with R.V., becoming conformed. The Greek construction is free, but clear.—The Lord’s Death as the supreme expression of His love and of His holiness, and the supreme act of His surrender to the Father’s will, draws the soul of the Apostle with spiritual magnetic force to desire, and to experience, assimilation of character to Him who endured it. The holy Atonement wrought by it is not here in direct view; he is full of the thought of the revelation of the Saviour through His Passion, and of the bliss of harmony in will with Him so revealed. No doubt the Atonement is not forgotten; for the inner glory of the Lord’s Death as Example is never fully seen apart from a sight of its propitiatory purpose. But the immediate thought is that of spiritual harmony with the dying Lord’s state of will. Cp. 2Co_4:10.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Php_3:10

That I may know Him

The path of life

I.

Knowledge.

II. Power.

III. Fellowship with Christ.

IV. Conformity to his death. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

The believers aspirations

It is said that St. Augustine wished to have seen three things before he died; Rome in its glory, Christ in the flesh, and Paul in his preaching. But many have seen the first without being the holier, the second without being happier, and heard the third and yet went to perdition. But Paul, in this and the previous chapters, expresses seven wishes which centre in Christ--that he might know Christ, win Christ, magnify Christ, be conformed to Christ, be found in Christ, rejoice in the day of Christ, and be forever with Christ. Now these correspond perfectly with the desires of every child of God. Here Paul desires--

I. To know Christ. St. Paul appreciated the value of other departments of knowledge. He was a scholar and a theologian; but after he had learned Christ they seemed to fade in interest. This knowledge was the subject of his preaching everywhere, as he told the Corinthians and the Galatians. He wished to know Christ.

1. Increasingly. The more he knew Him the more he wanted to know, and no wonder, for

(1) in Him is everything worthy to be known.

(2) This knowledge never cloys.

2. Experimentally. To know in Scripture is to see and to taste. It is not the speculative knowledge that devils have, nor mere historical knowledge, but such as a hungry man has when he eats, and a thirsty man when he drinks. It is appropriative of Christ--My Lord, My Saviour.

3. Superlatively (verse 8). For what is the widest and most delightful knowledge in the presence of this? but as sounding brass, vanity.

II. The power of his resurrection. The word power makes all the difference between religion in the head and in the heart, between possession and profession. It is one thing to have knowledge, and another to have it vitally and brought into action. Christs resurrection has a vast power.

1. In our justification. His ransom could avail nothing without His resurrection. If Christ be not raised your faith is vain. But by it the Father publicly testified His approval

2. In our sanctification, which is the renewing of our nature and the strengthening of our graces by the Holy Spirit, who is the fruit of the resurrection.

3. In our edification. Every sermon, etc., is vain if Christ be not risen. All the means of Christian growth are dependent upon it (Eph_4:7-14). What power it gave to apostolic preaching.

4. In our glorification. There had been no resurrection for us without Christs. As in Adam, the covenant head, all died; so in Christ, the covenant head of Adams posterity, all shall be made alive.

III. The fellowship of his sufferings. Not in His merits: the crown must be forever on His head. We know this.

1. By partaking of the benefit of His sufferings, pardon, etc.

2. By communion with Him through the channel of His sufferings--His Divine humanity, hanging on the Cross, and commemorated in the sacrament.

3. By enduring for His sake the same sufferings which He endured--the worlds frowns, Satans temptations. Is the servant above his master.

IV. Conformity unto his death. Why not His life? That is not excluded. But His death presents in a condensed form all that we could desire to he on earth. We see in Him--

1. Great patience under suffering.

2. Great faith.

3. Great compassion for dying men.

4. Great filial tenderness.

5. Great love for repenting sinners. (J. Sherman.)

Knowing Christ

He who of mortal men knew Christ best confesses that he knew Him but imperfectly.

1. How much, then, must there be in Him to know. Do we lose a sense of the Redeemers majesty by familiarity with His name? See, then, His chief disciple, after years of contemplation, imitation, and adoration, confessing that the great object of God, manifest in the flesh, seems greater than ever, so that at the last he offers the prayer suitable to a novice.

2. This is true of all the works of God, whether in the material or the spiritual world, and is illustrated by what a climber sees of the starry firmament: from the bottom the mountain tops seem among the stars, but as he ascends they seem to recede, and their vastness and distance are best seen from the summit.

3. What Paul meant is clearer from the following explanations.

I. Knowing the power of His resurrection. Paul laboured and suffered much, and was pursued by great infirmity and frequent depression; but he saw above him the figure of the once suffering but now risen Christ--his brother throned and crowned. Looking up it seems as if he were moved to say, Would that I could be raised out of what I am, and become as He is--victor over sin, sorrow, and death. In this sense we may feel the power of Christs resurrection. In Christ, risen and glorified, is the image in which we may behold what we may become.

II. A share of Christs sufferings the condition of a share in His resurrection. He has just expressed a desire to resemble Christ glorified, but he here checks himself in order to show that what he desires is not an easy and instantaneous change. What he seeks is not simply repose and relief. He is perfectly willing to resemble Christ glorified by passing through the intermediate stages. He, too, would reach the crown through the Cross, remembering that it is enough for the disciple to be as his Master. Whoever then would know Christ must face--

1. Suffering--the suffering of arduous effort, patient resignation, and trust when faith is tempted to fail.

2. Death--the death to much that is attractive here, and especially to sin, as well as to the death of the body. (T. M. Herbert, M. A.)

The experimental knowledge of Christ

I. An experimental knowledge of Christ is so great a blessing that we should count all things but loss to get it. It is sometimes expressed by taste. Sight is the knowledge of faith, taste that of experience (1Pe_2:3; Psa_34:8). When we taste His goodness or feel His power we have an experimental knowledge of Christ. Many know how to talk about Him but feel nothing. Men speak of His salvation from day to day, but have not the effects of it. When we find within ourselves the fruits of His sufferings, the comfort of His promises, the likeness of His death, the power of His resurrection, then we know Christ experimentally. The benefits it confers show its value. Experience--

1. Gives us a more intimate knowledge of things. While we know them by hearsay we know them only by guess and imagination, but when we know them by experience we know them in truth. He that reads about the sweetness of honey may guess at it, but he that tastes it knows what it is (Col_1:6). A man who has travelled through a country knows it better than he who knows it only by a map.

2. Gives greater confirmation of the truth. A man needs no reason to convince him that fire is hot who has been scorched, or that weather is cold who feels it in his fingers. So when the promises of God are verified we see that there is more than letters and syllables (Psa_18:30; 1Co_1:6; 1Th_1:5).

3. Gives greater excitement to the love of Christ and His ways. The more we feel the necessity of Christ and know His usefulness in binding up our broken hearts, the more we shall love Him as our Saviour (1Jn_4:19). We may know the truth of the gospel by other means, but we cannot know that it belongs to us by any other means.

4. Engages us more to zeal and diligence in the heavenly life, which reports and exhortations often fail to do.

(1) Because when, e.g., we have experience of the power of Christs resurrection it begets a new life within which inclines us to heavenly things--there is a principle to work with (Gal_5:25).

(2) When this life is gratified with the rewards of obedience, such as peace and comfort, it is an argument above all others to press for more. The Cauls when they had once tasted the Italian grape must get into the country where it grew. The spies were sent to bring the clusters of Canaan into the wilderness to animate the Israelites to put in for the good land. So God gives us the Spirit not only as an earnest (1Co_1:22) to show us how sure, but as first fruits to show us how good (Rom_8:23).

(3) When this life is obstructed by folly and sin, you find more of Christs displeasure in your inward man (Eph_4:30) than can possibly be represented to your outward condition.

II. Motives.

1. It is a dangerous temptation when the gospel comes in word only (1Co_4:20). It must follow either that you settle in a cold form (2Ti_3:5) or into an open denying of Christ and the excellency of His religion.

2. If you have not this knowledge how will you be able to carry on this spiritual life with any delight, seriousness, or success? (1Jn_5:3-10).

3. Without it you can have no assurance of your own interest (Rom_4:4-5; 1Jn_4:17).

4. Without it you will neither honour Christianity nor propagate it.

(1) By word (Psa_34:8). A report of a report at second or third hand is no valid testimony. None can speak with such confidence as those who feel what they speak (2Co_1:4).

(2) By work (2Th_1:11-12; 1Th_1:4-7).

III. Means.

1. A sound belief of the doctrines of the gospel (1Jn_5:10; 1Th_2:13). We cannot feel the power of the truth till we receive it.

2. Serious meditation and consideration (Psa_45:1; Act_16:14).

3. Close application. Things work not upon us at a distance (Job_5:27). Conclusion:

1. Look for experience rather in the way of sanctification than of comfort. The one is not so necessary as the other, and the Spirit may cease to comfort that He may sanctify.

2. Look to the thing end not to the measure or degree (T. Manton, D. D.)

Experimental knowledge of Christ

1. A man may have a competent and very extensive acquaintance with the whole doctrine of the Christian religion, and yet if he has not an experimental knowledge of Christ it is all vain as to salvation.

2. In the previous verse the apostle deals with his gain in point of justification, here in point of sanctification.

I. What this experimental knowledge is. An inward and spiritual feeling of what we hear and believe, concerning Christ and His truths, whereby answerable impressions are made on our souls (Psa_34:8; Joh_4:42).

1. The Scripture says of Christ that He is the way to the Father (Joh_14:6). Now the man who has tried many other ways and finds no access, at length comes by Christ and finds communion with God. This is experimental knowledge (Rom_5:1-2).

2. Christs blood purges the conscience, etc. (Heb_9:1-28). The experimental Christian knows that sin defiles the conscience and unfits him to serve God. At length he looks to God in Christ and throws his guilt into the sea of Christs blood; then the sting is taken from the conscience and the soul is enabled to serve God as a son with a father.

3. Christ is fully satisfying to the soul (Psa_73:25; Hab_3:17-18). We all know this by report, the Christian knows it by experience. Sometimes in the midst of all his enjoyment he says, These are not my portion, and when deprived of these he can encourage himself in God (1Sa_30:6; 1Sa_1:18).

4. Christ helps His people to bear afflictions and keeps them from sinking under them. The Christian sometimes tries to bear his burden alone and finds it too heavy for him. Then he goes to Christ and lays it on the great burden-bearer and is helped (Psa_28:7; Isa_43:2; 2Co_8:9-10).

5. Christ is made unto us wisdom (1Co_1:20). When the Christian leans to his own understanding he mistakes his way at noonday, but when he gives himself up to be led by Christ as a blind man, he is conducted in a way he knew not, and blesses the Lord who has given him counsel.

6. Christ is made unto us sanctification (1Co_1:30), Apart from Christ the Christian wrestles in vain and his graces lie dead; but when he renews the actings of faith in Christ, and flings down self-confidence, he becomes more than conqueror.

II. Confirmation of the point. Consider--

1. The Scripture testimonies concerning this.

(1) To learn religion in all the power and parts of it is to learn Christ (Eph_4:20-24).

(2) There needs no more to be known, for this comprehends all (1Co_2:2).

(3) It is the sum and substance of a believers life (Php_1:21). Yea, eternal life itself (Joh_17:3).

2. All true religion is our likeness to God. This is impossible without Christ, for He is the only channel of those influences which makes us partakers of the Divine nature (2Co_4:6).

3. Whatever religion a man seems to have that does not come and is maintained in this way, is but nature varnished over: for he that honoureth not the Son, etc.

III. The means. Faith closing with Christ.

1. Belief that Christ is such a one as He is held out in the gospel to be. It is the want of this that mars this knowledge (Isa_53:1).

2. Closure with Christ, to the very end that the soul may so know Him.

3. Union with Christ, so making way for this knowledge which is the happy result of union.

IV. Improvement.

1. Religion is not a matter of mere speculation to satisfy curiosity, but a matter of practice. An unexperimental professor is like a foolish sick man who entertains those about him with fine discourses of the nature of medicines, but in the meantime is dying for the want of application of them.

2. The sweet of religion lies in the experience of it (Psa_63:5; Psa_19:11). Religion would not be the burden it is if we would by experience carry it beyond dry, sapless notions.

3. All the profit of religion lies in the experience of it (Mat_7:22). Painted fire will never burn, and the sight of water will never wash.

4. The experimental Christian is the only one whose religion will bring him to heaven, which is experimental religion perfected. (T. Boston, D. D.)

Do you know Him

I. Let us pass by that crowd of outer-court worshippers who are content to live without knowing Christ. I do not mean the ungodly and profane, these are altogether strangers and foreigners, but--

1. Those who are content to know Christs historic life. These know the life of Christ, but not Christ the life.

2. Those who know and prize Christs doctrine, but do not know him. Addison tells us that the reason why so many books are printed with the portraits of their authors is that the interested readers want to know what appearance the author had. This is very natural Why then do you rest satisfied with Christs words without desiring to know Him who is the Word?

3. Those who are delighted with Christs example. That is well as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. His example will be better understood as we know Himself.

4. Those who are perfectly at ease with knowing Christs sacrifice. This is a blessed attainment, but we should not forget that He was the sacrifice and is greater than it.

5. Those who look for His coming and forget His presence.

6. Those who are satisfied with hearing or reading about Christ: but Paul did not say, I have heard of Him whom I believe, but I know.

7. Those who are persuaded to their ruin that they know Him but do not.

II. Let us draw curtain after curtain, which shall admit us to know more of Christ.

1. We know a person when we recognize him: and to this extent we know the queen, because we have seen her, and so by a Divine illumination we must know Christ who He is and what He was.

2. By a practical acquaintance with what He does. They tell me Christ is a cleanser, I know Him because He has washed me in His blood; that He is a deliverer, I know Him because He has set me free; that He is a sovereign, I know Him because He has subdued my enemies; that He is food, my spirit feeds on Him.

3. We know a man in a better sense when we are on speaking terms with him. I know a man not only so as to recognize him, and because I have dealt with him, but because we are speaking acquaintances. So we know Christ if we pray to Him.

4. But we know a person better when he invites us to his house; we go and go again, and the oftener we go the better we know him. Do you visit Christs banquetting house, and has He permitted you to enjoy the sweets of being one of His family?

5. And yet after frequent visits you may not know a man in the highest sense: you say to his wife, Your husband never seems to suffer from depression, or to change. Ah, she says, you do not know him as I do. That man has grown much in grace who has come to recognize his marriage union with his Lord. Now we have the intimacy of love and delight.

6. But a Christian may get nearer than this. The most loving wife may not perfectly know her husband, yet a Christian may grow to be perfectly identified with Christ. Looking at all this might not Christ well say now, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me.

III. Consider what sort of knowledge this is.

1. If I know Him I shall have a very vivid sense of His personality. He will not be to me a myth, a vision, a spirit, but a real person. Then there must be a personal knowledge on my part, not a hearsay, second-hand knowledge.

2. It must be intelligent. I must know His nature, offices, works, and glory.

3. Affectionate. It was said of Garibaldi that he charmed all who got into his society. Being near Christ His love warms our hearts.

4. Satisfying.

5. Exciting. The more we know the more we want to know.

6. Happy.

7. Refreshing.

8. Sanctifying.

IV. Seek, then, this knowledge.

1. It is worth having. Paul gave up everything for it.

2. There is nothing like this to fill you with courage. When Dr. Andrew Reed found some difficulty in founding one of his orphan asylums, he drew upon a piece of paper the cross, and then he said to himself, What, despair in the face of the Cross; and then he drew a ring round it and wrote, nil disperandum! (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Uses of the knowledge of Christ

Pauls acquaintance with Christ--

I. Reconciled him to the painful vicissitudes of outward circumstances (Php_4:11-13).

II. Brought him help under the emergencies of special danger (2Ti_4:16-18).

III. Secured him support amidst the special inward trials of his personal life (2Co_12:7-10). (Dean Vaughan.)

Characteristics of the knowledge of Christ

The apostle aimed to know Him as being in Him. Such knowledge is inspired by the consciousness--not elaborated by the intellect. It rises up from within; is not gathered from without. It does not accumulate evidence to test the truth--it has the witness in itself. It needs not to repair to the cistern and draw--it has in itself a well of water springing, etc. It knows, because it feels; it ascertains, not because it studies, but because it enjoys union, and possesses the righteousness of God through faith. She that touched the tassel of His robe had a knowledge of Christ deeper and truer by far than the crowds that thronged about Him: for virtue had come out of Him, and she felt it in herself. Only this kind of knowledge possesses the excellency, for it is connected with justification, as was intimated by Isaiah; and it is eternal life, as declared by Jesus (Isa_53:11; Joh_17:3). The apostle could not set so high a value on mere external knowledge, or a mere acquaintance with the fact and dates of Christs career. For it is quite possible for a man to want the element of living experience, and yet be able to argue himself into the Messiahship of the Son of Mary; to gaze on His miracles and deduce from them a Divine commission without bowing to its authority; aye, and to linger by the Cross, and see in it a mysterious and complete expiation, without accepting the pardon and peace which the blood of the atonement secures. (Professor Eadie.)

The knowledge of Christ a personal knowledge

The knowledge about which the apostle speaks is a personal knowledge. It presupposes intellectual knowledge, but is something else. It is the knowledge of which we speak when we say of a man I know him. What do we mean when we say this? Do we not mean, I have seen him, observed him, conversed with him, interchanged thoughts with him, spent time with him, done things with him, have been admitted into his confidence, written to him, and heard from him? These things and such as these are what make up personal knowledge between man and man. We should never say, I know such or such a great man of history--I know Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon--merely because we have read of them, and could give an account of their exploits. We should not say this even of the great men of our own time, its statesmen, generals, or philosophers--no, not even if we had seen them in public, or heard them speak, or read their writings--unless also we had been admitted to their society, and had exchanged with them the confidences which a man gives his friend. Even thus is it with the knowledge of Christ. We have no right to say, I know Christ, merely because we have read of Him in Scripture, or because He has taught in our streets. We have no right to say so unless He has spoken to us, and we to Him. Unless we have access to His privacy, and can tell Him our secrets. Unless we can go in and out where He dwells, and talk with Him as a man talketh with his friend. Unless we have not only read in Scripture that He is wise and merciful, etc., but have also acted on that information, and found Him so for ourselves. Unless in temptation we have cried unto Him, and received strength; unless in trouble we have applied to Him and experienced a very present help. (Dean Vaughan.)

The natural desire of a Christian for the knowledge of his Saviour

Suppose yourself a man condemned to the lions in the Roman amphitheatre. A ponderous door is drawn up, and forth there rushes the monarch of the forest. You must slay him or be torn to pieces. You tremble; your joints are loosed; you are paralyzed with fear. But what is this? A great unknown leaps from the gazing multitude and confronts the monster. He quails not at the roaring of the devourer, but dashes on him till the lion slinks towards his den, dragging himself along in pain and fear. The hero lifts you up, smiles into your bloodless face, whispers comfort in your ear, and bids you be of good courage, for you are free. Do you not think that there would arise at once in your heart a desire to know your deliverer? As the guards conducted you into the open street, and you breathed the cool, fresh air, would not the first question, be, Who was my deliverer, that I may fall at his feet and bless him? You are not, however, informed, but instead of it you are led away to a noble mansion, where your wounds are healed with salve of rarest power. You are clothed in sumptuous apparel; you are made to sit down at a feast; you rest upon the softest down. The next morning you are attended by servants who guard you from evil and minister to your good. Day after day, week after week, your wants are supplied. I am sure that your curiosity would grow more and more intense. You would scarcely neglect an opportunity of asking the servants, Tell me, who is my noble benefactor, for I must know him? Well, but they would say, is it not enough for you that you are delivered from the lion? Nay, say you, it is for that very reason that I pant to know him. Your wants are richly supplied--why are you vexed by curiosity as to the hand which reaches you the boon? If your garment is worn out, there is another. Long before hunger oppresses you, the table is well loaded. What more do you want? But your reply is, It is because I have no wants, that, therefore, my soul longs to know my generous friend. Suppose that as you wake up one morning, you find lying upon your pillow a precious love token from your unknown friend, and engraved with a tender inscription. Your curiosity now knows no bounds. But you are informed that this wondrous being has not only done for you what you have seen, but that he was imprisoned and scourged for your sake, for he had a love to you so great, that death itself could not overcome it, you are informed that he is every moment occupied in your interests, because he has sworn by himself that where he is there you shall be; his honours you shall share, and of his happiness you shall be the crown. Why, methinks you would say, Tell me, men and women, any of you who know him, who and what he is; and if they said, But it is enough for you to know that he loves you, and to have daily proofs of his goodness, you would say, No, these love tokens increase my thirst. If ye see him, tell him I am sick of love. The flagons which he sends me, and the love tokens which he gives me, they stay me for awhile with the assurance of his affection, but they only impel me onward with the more unconquerable desire that I may know him. I must know him; I cannot live without knowing him. His goodness makes me thirst, and pant, and faint, and even die, that I may know him. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The progressive knowledge of Christ

Did you ever visit the manufactory of splendid porcelain at Sevres? I have done so. If anybody should say to me, Do you know the manufactory at Sevres? I should say, Yes, I do, and no, I do not. I know it, for I have seen the building; I have seen the rooms in which the articles are exhibited for sale, and I have seen the museum and model room; but I do not know the factory as I would like to know it, for I have not seen the process of manufacture, and have not been admitted into the workshops, as some are. Suppose I had seen, however, the process of the moulding of the clay, and the laying on of the rich designs, if anybody should still say to me, Do you know how they manufacture those wonderful articles? I should very likely still be compelled to say, No, I do not, because there are certain secrets, certain private rooms into which neither friend nor foe can be admitted, lest the process should be open to the world. So, you see, I might say I knew, and yet might not half know; and when I half knew, still there would be so much left, that I might be compelled to say, I do not know. How many different ways there are of knowing a person--and even so there are all these different ways of knowing Christ; so that you may keep on all your lifetime, still wishing to get into another room, and another room, nearer and nearer to the great secret, still panting to know Him. Good Rutherford says, I urge upon you a nearer communion with Christ, and a growing communion. There are curtains to be drawn by, in Christ, that we never shut, and new foldings in love with Him. I despair that ever I shall win to the far end of that love; there are so many plies in it. Therefore, dig deep, and set by as much time in the day for Him as you can, He will be won by labour. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

And the power of His resurrection.

The power of Christs resurrection

There are those who think it indicative of an unspiritual state of mind to lay stress on the physical resurrection of Christ. They tell us that the all-important matter is His resurrection in the hearts of His disciples. But Paul regarded it as a fact of transcendent importance. He and the other apostles regarded it as a power.

I. For inspiring faith in Christ as the son of God.

II. For our justification (Rom_4:25). The resurrection was a pledge that God had accepted the sacrifice.

III. For inspiring within us the hope of glory. Death is to the eye of sense a mystery, and the materialistic doctrine darkens what faint hope of immortality may be within us. But Christs resurrection brought life and immortality to light. He conquered death, and to believe that He is the first fruits of them that slept, is to receive power to break the tyranny of death (verse 21).

IV. To sanctify our nature. This is perhaps Pauls leading idea. To identify ourselves with a risen Redeemer must exert a purifying effect on our souls (Col_3:1). (T. C. Finlayson)

.

The power of Christs resurrection

I. As seen in Christ himself (Eph_1:17-21).

1. In it Christ as man was invested with all the power and glory of the Godhead. All power is given unto Me.

2. When He returns it will be in the fulness of the resurrection glory.

II. In the justification of the believer.

1. Resurrection implies death, and to know Christ in His resurrection is to know that we died in His death as our surety (Rom_6:7)

2. As judicially one with Christ in His death, the believer is one with Him in His resurrection.

III. In the life of the believer.

1. We who were dead in trespasses and sins are quickened by it into life.

2. This life is sustained by a constant supply from the fountain head.

3. By this power we rise above the world and sit in heavenly places with Christ.

IV. Is the believers service.

1. Observe its acting in the earliest possessors of it.

2. Employ it in testifying to its power.

V. In the believers resurrection.

1. Christs resurrection is the pledge of ours.

2. Ensures the triumph and glorification of the Church. (C. Graham.)

The power of Christs resurrection

I. In relation to sin.

1. The death of Christ, had the redemptive effort ended there, had sealed mans doom forever; the resurrection made it vital, the spring of purifying and renewing for the world. From the ground the blood of Christ, like that of Abel, cries out against humanity. It is from heaven that Jesus preaches peace through His blood, and makes it a power to save.

2. The resurrection brought to man precisely the power he needed for victorious resistance to that by which his higher life was in process of being destroyed. The risen form threw glorious light on the flesh, as completing the incarnation. The body was redeemed by it from degradation, and consecrated as the Spirits organ and shrine forever.

3. When Christ had risen, men saw that the vileness, the curse, the stain, was the work of an alien and intrusive force which might be expelled, and in the might of that belief men for the first time rose in victory over those passions which had defiled the body.

II. In relation to sorrow.

1. The mountains of the world are great or as nothing according as we view them from a valley or from a star, so all the storms and crosses of life dwindle looked at from the height of Jesus and the resurrection.

2. The resurrection maintains the continuity of the life of the man of sorrows and the reigning king. So we need not shrink from our sorrows if we but bear in mind the glory that shall follow.

3. Nay, the men who first realized the power of the resurrection, gloried in tribulations. It made them one with Christ, which guaranteed the ultimate victory.

III. In relation to death.

1. We have little power of realizing the anguish with which the men of old peered into the unseen. This was the world of light, of life--that of shadows and ghosts. To the children of the resurrection it is exactly the reverse. The sorrow and gloom is of time, the light and joy are everlasting.

2. The resurrection wedded the two worlds. Who now dreads to live or to die? Because living or dying we are the Lords. (Baldwin Brown, B. A.)

.

The power of Christs resurrection

I. As a fact. That is our faith. Your philosophers who do not believe in miracle do not believe it possible, because they do not allow that God can interfere with, and is above the system He arranged. But we believe that God who made the world administers His own laws and interposes if He thinks fit. The power of the resurrection, proving the truth of Christianity as a whole, proves its exclusiveness as a system of Divine thought which is to constitute the religion of man.

II. As a doctrine. The fact enshrines a thought. Simply considered as a fact, having power over the reason, as a part of the evidence of Christianity, the resurrection of Jesus is the same as that of Lazarus. But as a doctrine it is very different. Jesus died, according to the Scriptures, and according to the Scriptures He rose again. It is the fulfilment of a Divine purpose; and its power is an appeal to our spiritual nature, our conscience, and sense of guilt.

III. As a type. As Christ died and rose, we are to die to sin and live to God, as those who are alive from the dead.

IV. As a motive. Observe how these thoughts interweave. The resurrection as a fact operates upon the intellect and gives assurance of truth; as a doctrine it deepens the truth and touches consciences and expresses reconciliation with God; as a type, we rising from the dead and walking with Christ--that is the developed experience of the Christian man in the life of God. Christ was not glorified immediately. He lived for forty days a different life from His former one. So must we under the power of the resurrection. Christ is risen, therefore Seek those things that are above.

V. As a model (verse 21). Conclusion: These transcendental thoughts, so far from unfitting us for the sober duties of life, ennoble and beautify life. A servant girl may act on a principle which may bring her into harmony with the angels. You need not wait for Sunday to engage in Divine service. You have but to realize in the shop or the market the power of the resurrection. (T. Binney, D. D.)

The power of Christs resurrection

1. We need more and more to look at the facts of the Christian dispensation; the doctrines we are required to believe have their foundations in these facts. Our tendency is to treat Christian doctrines as if they were speculations.

2. The resurrection is an accomplished fact. It is sometimes attributed to Christ alone; sometimes to the Father; sometimes to the Spirit; so that it is brought before us as a blessed manifestation of the power of the redeeming God.

3. The power of the resurrection may signify--

(1) The power which effected it;

(2) the power of the fact itself, or--

(3) the power with which Christ was endowed at it, and these words may include all.

4. To know the power, etc., is--

(1) To recognize it as a reality.

(2) To comprehend and appreciate it in its relation with mans redemption.

(3) To feel its force upon the life. The resurrection of Christ is--

I. An example of the almighty life-giving power of God. To know its power is to be conscious of the working of the same upon ourselves, quickening, renewing, enlightening, invigorating.

II. A confirmation forever of the claims of Jesus of Nazareth. To know its power is to feel assured that the son of Mary is the Son of God. This is essential to our taking full advantage of His riches and resources.

III. The sign and seal of the truth of the gospel. To know its power is to see that truth sealed not by His blood simply, but by His hand in the newness of His glorified life. Why is it we do not declare that truth more constantly and zealously? Because of our unbelief. Those who cordially believe it are constantly repeating it.

IV. Adapted to strengthen our trust in him. To know its power is to feel our confidence strengthened in sorrow and death.

V. Calculated to awake within us the most glorious hopes. To know its power is to become the subjects by its influence of new and enlarged expectations, desires, aspirations and affections.

VI. Fitted to raise us into newness of life. To feel its power is to rise with Him and set our affections on things above. VII. Able to give courage in approaching suffering. To know its power is to feel strengthened to endure all the will of God. VIII. Suited to raise the believer above the fear of death. To know its power is to feel that it is a pledge of immortality. (S. Martin.)

The power of the resurrection

I. As the assurance of immorality (Rom_8:11; 1Co_15:14, etc.).

II. As the triumph over six and the pledge of justification (Rom_4:24-25).

III. As asserting the dignity and enforcing the claims of the human body (1Co_6:13-15; Php_3:21).

IV. Thus stimulating the whole moral and spiritual being (Rom_6:4, etc.; Gal_2:20; Eph_2:5; Col_2:12). (Bishop Lightfoot.)

I. What is intended by the power of Christs resurrection. The influence which that great event has upon the other parts of His mediatorial character and offices, connected with the safety and happiness of His people. This may be traced--

1. In the open and uncontroverted declaration of His Divine Sonship (Rom_1:4; Psa_2:1-12; cf. Act_13:32; Heb_1:3-5).

2. In its influence upon our justification (Rom_4:25).

3. In its effect on our sanctification (Joh_7:39; Joh_16:7-8).

4. In the exaltation of the saints to glory of which it is the procuring cause--Because I live, etc. (1Co_15:21-22).

II. What is it to know that power?

1. Not merely the illumination of the understanding but--

2. The heart felt experience of what is said to be known (Col_2:12-13; Col_3:1; Eph_2:4-22, corresponding to what the resurrection meant for Christ.

(1) Our Sonship--begotten again to a lively hope.

(2) Our freedom from the laws penalties, which He has satisfied.

(3) Our entrance into the glory whither He as our fore runner has gone.

III. Why, as believers, we should desire that knowledge more and more. Because--

1. It is essential to the Christian character.

2. It tends to strengthen faith.

3. It teaches the true estimate of life with all its cares, and death with all its terrors.

Inferences:

1. The religion of Christ in all its parts is intended to be practical and experimental.

2. The Christian should be always pressing onwards to higher attainments of knowledge, faith, and holiness. (C. Neat.)

The power of the resurrection

I. In our justification.

II. In our regeneration. The Divine Agent in this is He of whom Christ said, If I go not away the Comforter will not come. So that the resurrection was essential to our being raised morally from the death of sin to the life of righteousness.

III. In our sanctification. Our continuance and progressive growth in grace begun at regeneration is the work of the same Spirit.

IV. In our consolation and hope (1Th_4:1-18; 1Co_15:1-58).

V. In our anticipation. The moral magnet that draws up the grovelling affections and hopes of a man from earth to heaven is the risen Christ. Conclusion: We must know this power, by being justified, etc., which is the moral proof of Christs resurrection. (H. Stowell, M. A.)

(Text in conjunction with Mar_16:3-4.)

The resurrection is a power

I. To heal conscience. No system of thought that does not admit the fact of sin, or attempt to explain its meaning, or assist us in becoming delivered from its dominion, can hope to satisfy the needs of mankind. In all ages and countries the human heart has had two questions to ask about it, which nothing but the resurrection can completely answer. One is about pardon, and the other about righteousness. The one seeks peace with God, the other His image. And the resurrection is the power for both. It looks back and it points forward. It implies the Cross, and it presumes the Ascension. Why did He die? Not only as a Martyr, but as a Sin-bearer (Isa_53:5; 1Pe_2:24). But if He had only died, while we should have admired the unparalleled sacrifice, we should have mourned its uselessness. But in the resurrection we see the sacrifice accepted, peace ensured, and eternal life given. Sin on the conscience is one stone rolled away, and sin in the will another. His grace helps us to die to sin, and live to God through union with Him who, as He bore our sins, and identified Himself with our misery, is also made righteousness unto us, whereby we through our regeneration grafted into Him, are before God righteous in His righteousness.

II. To ennoble duty. What is life? Is it but as the dipping of an insects wing into the brimming flood of some tropical river--the quick submerging into a devouring sea of one after another of the myriad barks that are ever being launched on it, each with its solitary voyager--a journey between two nights. Then assuredly the saddest mystery about it is that it should ever have been given us at all. But in the light of the resurrection life is seen to be worth living, for the stone of a purposeless existence is rolled away (1Co_15:22); and with its new aims and responsibilities and functions and motives this life has a new meaning and force. There is--

1. Its stupendous responsibility, for some day we shall rise to receive the things done in our body--that is, their results, whether they be good or bad.

2. Its potential grace (Col_3:1).

3. Its majestic consecration (Rom_12:1). (Bishop Thorold.)

The power of Christs resurrection

In it--

I. The unity of doctrine in the Old and New Testaments is illustrated and confirmed.

II. Mans natural yearnings after immortality are met and satisfied.

III. A powerful stimulus is given to Christian character.

IV. We have a pledge of the triumph of the Church, and the coming of the Lord. (Homiletic Monthly.)

The power of Christs resurrection

In every occurrence there are to be considered the fact--that which actually occurs--and the consequences, actual or possible--what St. Paul calls its power. We know the fact of an occurrence when we have handled the proofs which show that it really took place; when we know how it has been described, what were its several aspects; but we know of the power of the fact when we can trace what its effects have been, or what they might have been or might be. It is easier to apprehend a fact than to take the measure of its consequences, its practical meaning, its power. If I throw a stone, I can ascertain the weight of the stone, the moment at which it leaves my hand, the distance of the spot at which it touches the ground. But what is hard to ascertain is the effect of the stones passage through the air; the thousands of insects instantaneously disabled or destroyed by it; the radiation of disturbance caused by the displacement of the atmosphere, and extending, it may be, into regions which defy calculation. All of us understand more or less, at least, the general outline of the succession of recent events in Egypt; but what will be, in the course of time, their import and influence upon the condition and history of our own country and of the world, who shall say? So to apprehend a fact is one thing; it is quite another to feel its power. When then St. Paul utters his prayer he implies that already he has knowledge of the fact. St. Paul, being thus sure of the resurrection as a fact, was not embarrassed by an a priori doctrine forbidding him to ignore it. He was not like those old schoolmen whom Lord Bacon condemned, and who, instead of learning what to think about nature from the facts of nature, endeavoured to persuade themselves that the facts of nature corresponded somehow with what they already thought about it. St. Paul, then, had no need to pray, as have many in our time, that he might be assured of the fact of Christs resurrection; what he did pray for was that he might increasingly understand its power. This power may be observed--

I. In the way is which a true belief in it enables a man to realize habitually the moral government of the world by God. Our age is not one in which men believe, that whatever happens, all is overruled by a Being who is perfectly good and wise. There are circumstances in the modern world which make belief in the Divine government harder than it was for our ancestors. One is our wider outlook. Thanks to the Press, to the railway, to the telegraph, we know a great deal more of what is going on all over the world than did any previous generation of men; and one consequence is this--that human life presents itself to many minds as a much more tangled and inexplicable thing than it ever did before. The disappointments in store for the conscience which is eagerly searching for clear traces of a law of right vigorously asserting itself are so frequent and so great, that men lose heart where heart and purpose are specially needful. Now, here the certainty that Jesus Christ arose from the dead asserts what St. Paul calls its power, for when Jesus Christ was crucified it might have seemed--it did seem--that the sun of Gods justice had gone down, that while all the Vices were being feasted and crowned in Rome, all the Virtues could be crucified with impunity in Jerusalem. But when He burst forth from the grave He proclaimed to mens senses as well as to their consciences that the real law which rules the world is moral and not material, and that the sun of Gods righteousness, if it is at times overclouded in human history, is sure to reappear.

II. In the firm persuasion it should create that the Christian creed is true as a whole and in its several parts.

1. It is a proof that the Christian creed is true. There are many truths of Christianity which do not contribute anything to prove its general truth, although they could not be denied or lost sight of without fatally impairing its integrity. Take, for example, our Lords perpetual intercession in heaven. We believe in this because the apostles have so taught us. We do not believe in the creed as a whole, because we believe in Christs intercession. It is otherwise with the resurrection, which is a proof that the Christian faith is true because it is the certificate of our Lords mission from heaven, to which He Himself pointed as the warrant of His claims (Joh_2:19; Mat_12:39-40; Joh_6:62; Mat_17:9; Mar_9:9-10; Mat_17:21; Mat_17:23; Joh_10:18; Mat_20:17-19; Mar_10:32-34; Luk_18:31-33. Joh_16:16; Mat_26:31-33). The resurrection was thus constantly before Christs mind, because it was to be the warrant of His mission. And when He did rise, He redeemed the pledge which He had given to His disciples and to the world. The first preachers of Christianity understood this. The resurrection was the proof to which they constantly pointed that our Lord was really what He claimed to be (Act_17:18; Act_2:22-24; Act_2:32),

2. What is the true value of this fact among the credentials of Christianity?

(1) Paley makes a great mistake when he rests the whole case of Christianity upon the fact that the resurrection was so certain to its first preachers, that they willingly gave their lives to attest it. This mistake lay not in insisting on this fact--which is, indeed, of the very first importance as an evidence of Christianity--but in insisting on it as if it stood alone, and would of itself and unsupported prove to all minds the truth of the Christian creed; the truth being that the evidences of Christianity are not one and simple, but many and complex. Their strength lies in their convergence. The fabric which its Divine Architect meant to rest upon a group of pillars cannot be safely rested, even by a man of genius, upon one.

(2) Another mistake is, that it is of no value whatever as an evidence of Christianity--Christianity is said to be recommended solely by the moral character of Christ; the supernatural incidents of His earthly life, and notably His resurrection, are treated as an embarrassing addition. This estimate of the evidential value of the resurrection is altogether opposed to the mind of our Lord and His apostles. They did not mean the resurrection to stand alone; but they assigned to it the highest place among the facts and considerations which go to show that Christianity is true: a countersign in the world of Nature to the teaching of our Lord in the court of conscience--the outward miracle assures us through the senses that the Being who is the Author of Nature is the same Being as He who speaks to conscience in the moral law, in the Sermon on the Mount, in the whole character and teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ. If we heard the inward voice of conscience alone we might doubt whether there was really anything external which warranted it; if we witnessed the outward miracle alone we might see in it a mere wonder with no moral consequence. But when the Teacher whose voice pierces, rouses, quickens the conscience is accredited by an interference with the observed course of Nature, the combined evidence is in reason overwhelming.

III. In the spiritual life of Christians. Our Lord is not merely our authoritative Teacher, or Redeemer, but also, through real union with us, the Author of a new life within us. St. Paul teaches us this again and again. Sometimes he speaks of our Lord as though He were a sphere of being within which the Christian lives: (2Co_5:17); sometimes as the inhabitant of the Christian soul (Col_1:27). This union is not metaphor, it is a certain experience. Our Lord, then, dwells in Christians, and, as a consequence, the New Testament teaches us that the mysteries of His earthly life are reproduced, after a manner, in the Christian soul. If Christ is born supernaturally of a virgin mother, the Christian is made Gods child by adoption and grace; apostles are in travail until Christ be formed in their converts. If Christ is crucified on Mount Calvary, the Christian, too, has a Calvary where he is crucified with Christ, crucifies the flesh, with the affections and lusts. If Christ, while apostles behold, is taken up into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, the Christian in heart and mind with Him ascends, with Him continually dwells, is made to sit together with Him in heavenly places. And, in like manner, if Christ rose from the dead the third day, according to the Scriptures, the Christian also has experience of an inward resurrection. Conclusion: Of this power lodged in the Christian soul there are three characteristics.

1. Christ rose really. It was not a phantom that haunted the upper chamber, etc. And our Easter resurrection from sin will be no less real if it is His power by which we are rising (Rev_3:1).

2. Our Lord rose to lead, for the most part, a hidden life. On the day of His resurrection He appeared five times, but rarely afterwards during the forty days. So it is with the risen life of the soul. It is not constantly flaunted before the eyes of men; it seeks retirement, solitude, and the sincerities which these ensure (Col_3:1-4).

3. Our Lord being raised, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him, etc. So with him who shares that risen life. (Canon Liddon.)

The power of the resurrection in sorrow

The letter of condolence written by Sulpicius to his friend Cicero who was mourning the loss of his beloved daughter, beautiful as it is, shows us that the best comfort which sentiment and philosophy can offer, is utterly powerless to bind up the broken heart. Why grieve? asks the sympathizing Roman, doing all that kindness and ingenuity could suggest to comfort his afflicted friend. Surely after seeing your country enslaved, your heart should be indifferent to so small a matter as the loss of a poor, weak, tender woman. And then Sulpicius gravely adds, as if such considerations could console the afflicted, Do not forget that you are Cicero--the wise, the philosophical Cicero, who was wont to give advice to others. Remember those judicious counsels now, and let it not be said that fortitude is the single virtue to which my friend is a stranger. Philosophy had not quite expended itself in these vapid platitudes, but the chief ground of comfort was reserved for the last. In my return out of Asia, the well-meaning Sulpicius goes on to say, as I was sailing from AEgina towards Megara, I amused myself with contemplating the circumjacent countries. Behind me lay AEgina, before me Megara; on my right I saw Piraeus, and on my left Corinth. These cities, once so flourishing and magnificent, now presented nothing to my view but a sad spectacle of desolation. Alas, I said to myself, shall such a short-lived creature as man complain, when one of his race falls either by the hand of violence, or by the common cause of nature, while in this narrow compass so many great and glorious cities, formed for a much longer duration, thus lie extended in ruins? Cold comfort, this! Would such reasoning help you to dry your scalding tears? Does it not seem like a hollow mockery of the hearts great grief? When, however, the power of Christs resurrection is known and felt, with what different eyes we look upon the grassy mounds which cover the remains of the departed! The dismal spot is changed at once into a field sown with the seeds of immortality. The Saviours blood-stained banner, emblazoned with the cross, which is carried before His people, in their triumphal march, bears the cheering inscription, I am the resurrection and the life! (J. N. Norton.)

The fellowship of His sufferings--

The fellowship of Christs sufferings

I. What it implies--a believing appreciation of them--evidenced by suffering in Christs service, for His sake, with and for the benefit of His people.

II. Why an object of ambition. It implies gratitude, honour, hope, union with Christ. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

These sufferings may be considered in two ways.

I. As expiatory of our, sins, borne by Jesus Christ in our stead in His quality of surety. And of these we are partakers, inasmuch as, embracing them by faith, God imputes them to us, and communicates to us the fruit thereof, namely, Divine and perfect righteousness, by which, absolved from all our sins, we become acceptable to God as His dear children, and can never more be called to endure any meritorious or expiatory sufferings as were those of the Saviour.

II. As models, patterns which Jesus has left us to follow, showing us the path by which it is the good pleasure of the Father to conduct us to salvation. And thus we are partakers with Him, being called to suffer after His example. And this fellowship may also be considered--

1. As interior, the mortification of sin within us, the crucifixion of the old nature, transpiercing it with His thorns and nails, drinking of His vinegar, and thus putting it to death by degrees; in which the passion of the Saviour is represented within our hearts (Rom_6:5-6; Gal_2:20; Gal_5:24).

2. Exterior; the part we have in the afflictions and persecutions of the Church, for the confirmation of the truth of God, for the glory of Jesus, for the edification of men (Rom_8:29; 2Ti_3:12.) (J. Daille.)

The fellowship of Christs sufferings

I. Fellowship with Christ generally.

1. In the enjoyment of the Divine favour--This is My beloved Son, We are the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Behold what manner of love, etc. What a word for

(1) Aliens and outcasts.

(2) Timorous disciples.

(3) Happy believers.

(4) Dying saints.

2. In the possession of the Spirit. To Him the Spirit was given without measure for the perfect fulfilment of all His offices; and because we are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts.

(1) For conversion.

(2) Sanctification.

(3) Enjoyment.

(4) As an earnest of heaven.

3. In His merits.

(1) The righteousness of Christ was perfect in its universality, motive, duration, spirituality.

(2) We may have fellowship in these merits, for Christ is the Lord our righteousness.

4. In His resurrection.

5. In His glory.

II. Fellowship with Christ in His sufferings. This is explained by the following clause.

1. What is there in the saints which should die? Sin. How does this principle of sin manifest itself? In--

(1) Unbelief.

(2) Hardness of heart.

(3) Impenitence.

(4) Alienation from God.

(5) Pride.

(6) Envy.

(7) Earthly-mindedness.

2. How does this principle die, so that we may be conformed to the death of Christ?

(1) Not by a natural death, but a violent one inflicted by an outside hand. It will never die of its own accord, or of disease. It must be mortified, crucified.

(2) Crucifixion was an ignominious death reserved for slaves and rebels, and does not sin merit such a death?

(3) A lingering death. And so sin does not die all at once. This should teach us patience, watchfulness, continued looking unto Jesus.

3. How may we know that we have His fellowship? By

(1) our hatred of sin;

(2) our fervent prayer against it;

(3) our desire for sanctification;

(4) our joyful anticipation of a sinless world. (A. Pope.)

By the fellowship of His sufferings

1. We are not here to understand a participation in those He endured as the substitute for sinners, although in a certain sense we do share them, and that not only in the sense of enjoying their advantages. They are ours because Christ suffered in our room and stead. But here Paul refers to Christs sufferings in general.

2. Nor are we to understand them as metaphorical; that as Christ died, so are we to die to sin; as Christ was nailed to the cross, so are we to crucify our corrupt passions. This is an important truth, and Paul emphasizes it elsewhere. But here it is a real fellowship in positive pain to which he adverts.

3. This was a strange desire, one which few of us would entertain. We wish to have fellowship in joy, and seek how we can pass through life with the least inconvenience. It would not have been surprising had the apostle denied fellowship with Christ in His glory. Yet he did not desire suffering for its own sake, but for its benefit. He knew well that Gods order was first the cross, then the crown; fellowship with Christ, first in suffering, then in glory.

I. In what sufferings can we have fellowship with Christ?

1. Negatively.

(1) Not in His atoning sufferings. These He bore alone, and we cannot partake in them. No man can make atonement for his own or others sins.

(2) Not in sufferings which arise out of guilt. As we cannot be partakers in Christs atoning, He cannot partake of our sinful sufferings. In the accusation of conscience, sense of guilt, fear of wrath, loss of character, evil effects in self and others, He can have no share. He was holy, harmless, etc.

(3) Not in certain forms of bodily affliction. Christ never was sick or unwell. Of course there is an important sense in which He was a partaker of this class of sufferings. His deep sympathy, sensitive tenderness, made Him feel the afflictions of others keenly.

2. Positively. We are partakers in those which arise--

(1) Front persecution for righteousness sake. Such constituted a large portion of our Lords. His whole life was one of persecution, beginning with His birth, closing only with His death. In this respect the apostles were conformed to their Master. It is true, thank God, that we are not now liable to sufferings of the same nature; but a man who maintains a high standard of religion, and condemns the world by his conduct, will meet with persecution in the way of petty annoyances, designed misconceptions, and coldness.

(2) From sympathy with the distressed. Every distress Christ witnessed was photographed on His soul. We have not a High Priest who cannot be touched, etc. In this sense believers must be conformed to Christ. The same loving, sympathizing spirit that was in Him must be in them.

(3) From grief for sin. Much of Christs sorrow arose from unavoidable intercourse with the wicked. When infinite purity comes in contact with impurity, sorrow and moral indignation must be the result. And so it is with true believers. The state of the world around them, drunkenness, Sabbath profanation, etc., must be peculiarly afflictive.

(4) From spiritual distress. This Christ knew well in Gethsemane and on the cross, when He complained of spiritual desertion, and similar sufferings are experienced by believers when the light of Gods countenance is obscured.

II. The benefits arising from this fellowship. Sorrow is better than laughter. Uninterrupted prosperity has a prejudicial influence over our spiritual nature, and tempts us to forget God. Suffering--

1. Purifies the soul. In the furnace of affliction the dross of earth is removed, passions are mortified; pride is humbled, and so our graces are confirmed and strengthened.

2. Draws forth the better qualities of a man. The seeds of virtue germinate in the hotbed of affliction.

3. Enables us to comfort others (2Co_1:4, etc.).

4. Prepares for heaven. Our light afflictions, etc. Conclusion: Suffering by itself will not produce these benefits; only when accompanied by the operation of the Holy Ghost. The fire which melts some substances hardens others: so some are improved by affliction, while others by reason of their own perverseness are made worse. (P. J. Gloag, D. D.)

The fellowship of Christs sufferings

I. This knowledge of Christ and His sufferings here so ardently desired. We may have it--

1. By an actual participation in suffering for His sake. Many persons of affected sensibility feel a sort of delight in following Christ into the judgment hall and to Calvary who have no heart to make sacrifice for His service. Their hearts seem moved, but when persecution arises they walk no more with Him.

2. By the cordial reception of the benefits secured to us by His sufferings in the exercise of a lively faith.

(1) Pardon.

(2) Purity.

(3) Reconciliation and peace.

(4) Life spiritual and eternal.

3. By a tender sympathy with all His followers in the sufferings they endure. All the members of the body feel if one be afflicted, so do all the members of the body of Christ.

II. The grounds of this preference.

1. The knowledge transcends all other as to its importance. All else is earthly and therefore transient; this affects the dearest and eternal interests of men.

2. It is infinitely more valuable than testimony or theory. (T. Raffles, D. D.)

The fellowship of Christs sufferings

Historically the disciples found themselves incapable of entering into the fellowship and sufferings of Jesus till touched by the power of His resurrection. They gathered with Him round the supper table, and gazed into His sorrowful countenance, but could not understand the mystery of His sufferings. There was a veil upon their heart, and a strange indescribable barrier between them and Him. They were amazed as Jesus went before them to Jerusalem, and as they followed they were afraid. They stood beside Him bravely for a moment in the garden, but when they saw Him bound and helpless when they expected miraculous power, they all forsook Him and fled. How different it was when these very men saw things as in the light of the glory that burst from that broken tomb; then they began to understand all that Moses and the prophets had spoken, and their hearts burned within them as they began for the first time to enter into the fellowship of His sufferings. A little further on in their history, and the power of the risen Christ has come down in the flood tide of Pentecost, and what a change is wrought. They who shrank back from suffering--that Peter who was ready to say, That be far from Thee, Lord, and denied his Master--that man gathers his fellows round him, and they lift up the voice of praise, rejoicing that they are counted worthy to suffer persecution for the sake of Christ. And as it was with them historically, so it seems to be doctrinally here. Do we desire that the Lord may nerve us to participate in His sufferings? In pro portion to the tide of new resurrection, life is strong in us. Shall we dare to stretch out our trembling hand to grasp His cup?

I. The fellowship of His sufferings. The word fellowship occurs in the case of the partnership which existed between the fishermen of Galilee, and in the case of the early Christians, who had all things common. So we are not only permitted to sympathize with Christ as the Man of sorrows, but that, just as two partners in a firm are both joint possessors of the capital which belongs to the firm, so that wondrous wealth of sorrow which belonged to the Lord Jesus Christ, so far as it is a source of wealth, belongs in a measure to us, who are partners with Him. As the wealth of the disciples was thrown into one fund, and distributed amongst all, so the wealth of sorrow which belonged to our great Head is thrown into one fund with all the sorrows of those who are His members, and we are partakers with Him of that which is no longer to us a source of loss, but, on the contrary, a perennial source of gain. And to this common fund we are each of us permitted in our measure to contribute (Col_1:24).

II. The fellowship of His sufferings.

1. Fellowship with the sufferer. Mere suffering will do nothing for us. We may torture ourselves if we will, but shall continue as ungodlike as before. What we want is to suffer in the right way, and that is in fellowship with Christ. How did He suffer? Not by entailing suffering on Himself, or courting it for its own sake. He was the Man of sorrows because it was His meat to do His Fathers will. Considerations of pleasure and pain were subordinate. Psa_118:27, is prophetic of the passion.

(1) Gods light--the light of the Divine purpose resting upon the problem of human life--indicated the way that led to Calvary. It led the Son into the darkness; yet it was not the less precious to the heart of the Son for that. And we, too, if we would have real fellowship with Jesus, must see to it that our fellowship is intelligent fellowship. Some of the broken hearted followers of Christ gathered round His cross, and certainly suffered while He suffered. Yet had they no real fellowship in His sufferings, because they had not risen to the discovery of His design. Is it not too often so even with us? We have our sorrows; but the ray of light has not yet entered our souls, and the result is that we have no fellowship with Christ in our sufferings; and this, not so much because God is unwilling to give us the light, as because we shrink, like Peter, from the illumination which reveals the cross, and thus His light becomes obscured, and we lose the moral power which should have raised us into fellowship with His sufferings.

(2) How strong were the cords with which Christ was bound! It was not the brute force of the soldiers, nor the mandate of the governor, nor even the cruel nails that fastened Him to the tree. These He could have broken, but there were other cords, and of how strong, that bound Him there. There was the cord of--

(a) Obedience. The Fathers will had revealed itself, and that was law to Him.

(b) Love, and that glowed with furnace heat towards God and man that proved itself stronger than death. Blessed are they whose love grows with sorrow. It is only thus that we rise to true fellowship with the sufferings of Christ.

(c) Faith. His very enemies bore witness that He trusted in God. His last words upon the cross testified that His trust remained unshaken. If we would rise into fellowship with His sufferings, it must be by stepping forward in the spirit of faith, even though it should be into a burning, fiery furnace. Suffering ceases to be sanctified when it is infected with mistrust.

2. Our privilege of fellowship in the sufferings. Much was borne that we might not have to bear; but as I gaze at yonder cross I interpret the nature of our fellowship in the light of the next clause. Take the voices which sound from the dying Son of Man.

(1) Father, forgive them; they know not what they do! Can I have fellowship in that? I believe there is not one of us that follows our Lord fully, but we shall be more or less misunderstood, misinterpreted, but let us endeavour to enter into sympathy with the heart and mind of Jesus; and then, if a rough word is spoken, or a brother does not seem to understand us, Christs prayer will rise to our lips.

(2) I thirst. Thank God our thirst shall never be what His was. Yet I am reminded, Blessed are they that thirst, etc. And do not be cast down that you have not received the fulness of blessing. Is it not something that your thirst for God and righteousness makes you in a sense partaker of the sufferings of Jesus.

(3) Woman, behold thy son! Son, behold thy mother. In that I see something that I may have fellowship with. In the midst of all His agony He found time to think upon the sorrows of His broken hearted mother and His lonely disciple, and to mingle their griefs with His own. How is human sorrow sanctified by such a revelation as this? Does bereavement come? The same pangs that shot through my Saviours heart are become mine, and I am a partaker with Him.

(4) My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? He was forsaken in order that you and I might not be forsaken. And yet, let us consider what it was that caused that cry: it was the dark shadow of imputed sin coming between His soul and God. And as we enter into the fellowship of the sufferings of Jesus, our views of sin will become more keen and clear, and also bring along with them a more painful emotion than could otherwise be ours. Let me enter into the fellowship of the sufferings of Jesus, that will make me hate sin.

(5) This day shalt Thou be with Me in Paradise. Parched are His lips, and His heart breaking; yet when that dying malefactors cry reaches His ear, His eye is turned upon that poor dying man, and the word of peace and pardon is spoken; and the suffering Son of Man takes on Himself the burden of the dying sufferer at His side. Oh for a heart to sorrow in all the sorrows of humanity!

(6) It is finished. Oh to be partakers with Christ in the glory of that last cry, which is the triumphant issue of suffering. When the will has been so fully yielded that God has been able to work out His own purpose in us, and to reveal His Son in us, then may it one day come to our turn to exclaim with St. Paul, I have finished my course.

3. Fellowship in the result of His sufferings. He, the Captain of our salvation, was made perfect through suffering. Even so, while there never was a time that the will of the Man Christ Jesus was opposed to the will of the Father, yet there was a time when its obedience was not completed, and thus He learnt obedience by the things which He suffered. If we learn what it is to be conformed to the image of His death, as our wilfulness and waywardness learn to submit themselves to the gentle discipline of suffering, and if in each fresh cross we find a fresh revelation of the loving will of the Father, how calm, how resurrection-like our lives must needs become! (W. M. H. H. Aitken, M. A.)

The fellowship of Christs sufferings

I. There are senses in which we can have no community with our Lord in His sufferings.

1. They were distinct in kind from ours.

(1) They were meritorious, whereas we cam never have any merit in Gods sight.

(2) Voluntary, whereas all ours are deserved being entailed by sin.

2. They were distinct in degree.

(1) In all their bitterness they were foreseen, whereas ours are hidden, and come in drops only.

(2) In absolute magnitude. He bore the whole burden of human suffering. Our sympathies are mighty, but the facts on which they are founded, and the persons they concern, are limited.

(3) In capacity for suffering He surpassed us. It is a token of Gods mercy as well as our infirmity that we are benumbed by pain. The crash which lights on a man and maims him, leaves him feeling for a moment unhurt. And so with great mental suffering. Often in the course of mighty calamities the chief sufferer endures less than those who pity him. But when in the depth of the valley of humiliation Christ was ever awake to each particular of His great load of woe, and when they offered Him the stupefying potion He put it from Him.

(4) In the matter and form and nature of His suffering He surpassed us. What was it that wrung that My soul is exceeding sorrowful. Was it the mere prospect of pain and shame? Can we suppose that that courage which has often borne on the sons of men to torture and ignominy, foreseen and chosen, was not present in Him? No. Death had a sting, but it was not pain, nor shame; it was sin.

II. But here we touch a point where we may enter into the fellowship of His sufferings. If He became sin for us we are the sinners. Imputed guilt crushed Him; shall actual guilt bring to us no similar suffering? Of this the natural man knows nothing. Terror on account of sin may throw over his soul its dark shadow, but this is not fellowship with Christs sufferings.

1. Whence, then, does this fellowship date? When first the Holy Spirit convinces of the hatefulness of sin.

2. This fellowship is an acquirement worthy of our highest ambition. We may avoid it, and live as we think a far more comfortable life. Shall we with the dread of death ever before us? Is it not worth while to get rid of this with all its grievous bondage?

3. The Christian should need no such argument, for the very purpose of his existence is to be conformed to Christ, but this he cannot be without the fellowship of His sufferings. The Captain of our salvation was made perfect through them; so must we be. (Dean Alford.)

The fellowship of Christs sufferings

It seems an awful wish that any mortal should dare to aspire to share the sufferings of the Man of sorrows; stranger still when we remember the actual sufferings of that mortal; stranger still that He should tell us to wish it for ourselves.

I. The nature of this fellowship.

1. It is not any imitation of Christs sufferings. Paul might have had them as had the impenitent thief, without any fellowship with Christ. We, too, may suffer beside Christ without suffering with Him.

2. The sufferings of Christ were peculiarly His own. Every heart knows its own bitterness.

(1) We shall not find them in the outward circumstances of His life. There have been more painful lives and agonizing deaths than His.

(2) We see their intensity in the fact that Christs life was perfectly holy. He loved God perfectly in a world where God was not loved, where His law was broken, and His name defamed. And remember He saw iniquity as none else could see it; and yet He loved the men whose sin He loathed, and because He loved them He bore the awful burden of their sin.

(3) In this our Lords life followed a universal law. It is a law of organic life, that the lowest form of it has least power of suffering; the highest form of it most. The eye that is the quickest to see beauty is most pained by deformity; the ear that most loves harmony is most pained by discord. But give a spiritual eye that loves the beauty of holiness; a spiritual ear that loves the harmony of righteousness, and place them in the midst of disorder and evil, and you have a nature that, just because it is perfect, must be sorrowful.

3. Now we see what is meant by this fellowship. Paul wished to be raised in the scale of being, and he knew that he could not have Christs holiness without Christs sadness, His grace without His grief. Such must be the law of our life. If we would come nearer Christ we must have His sufferings. You may escape them, but only by descending in the scale of being, just as a deaf man escapes the pain of discord, the palsied the pain of touch.

4. Is this a gloomy view of religion? Yes, to those who have mistaken what religion is, to the selfish, the cowardly, and the slothful, whose religion is only a device for getting to heaven as comfortably as they can.

II. Its reward.

1. Those who share the pains of Christ are entitled to His joys. The same capacity for pain that marks the highest nature also shows its capacity for pleasure. The joy of Christ was in the love He bore His Father, although that also made His grief. If He grieved that the world had not known His Father, it was joy to Him to gather those to whom He taught the Fathers love. If it was grief to the Good Shepherd to see the sheep wandering, it was joy to bring it back to the fold. And for this joy He endured the cross. And it may be our joy to do likewise, and to have the brighter fellowship even in the meanness of your toil.

2. In every pain you endure for Christ there is a prophecy of the glory that you shall yet share with Christ. God has made nothing for pain. For every creature God has provided its proper element, and for every desire its lawful gratification. If, then, God has made a new creature in Christ Jesus, He has provided for it an element and gratification for its spiritual desires. The plant that struggles toward the light testifies that light is its proper element; the captive eagle that spreads its wings in vain testifies that its proper home is in the broad fields of air. And when the soul of the Christian pines for the light, and its wings of faith and hope spread themselves, unable to bear him to the home he loves, it is a certain proof that there is a light, a freedom, and a blessedness in the place our Lord has gone to prepare, and he welcomes the pain as preparing him for the place. (Bishop Magee.)

The fellowship of Christs sufferings

I. In what respects a Christian may have fellowship with the sufferings of his master.

1. By comprehending their character, objects, and results.

(1) Those who think of them as chiefly corporeal, or proceeding from the treatment of men, or from natural causes, cannot share this fellowship. The body was tortured, but my soul is troubled. There was no cross in the garden; nor does the prospect of suffering explain the agony there; nor the endurance His cry. God hath put Him to grief, and those who regard His sorrows as those of a martyr can have no fellowship with Him who was wounded for our transgressions.

(2) They who limit the effect of these sufferings to their moral influence can have no fellowship with Him it is true that Christ has set all mourners an example; but He also offered Himself without spot. God setting him forth as a propitiation is something distinct from setting us an example.

(3) But the belief of this is not everything, notwithstanding what doctrinal Pharisees may say. The devils have it but are not better for it, and a man may be sound in his ideas about these things without caring an atom for them.

2. By faith in them as real and efficacious, and by appropriating their fruits to ourselves. When I feel and know that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth me from sin I have the highest kind of this fellowship. I may not know all that God has revealed about the blood of Jesus, nor be able to satisfy a theologian, but just as I know that the sun gives me light, and food nourishment, so I may know that Christs blood takes away sin.

3. By suffering as far as possible in His Spirit. There were sorrows into which we cannot follow Him, and His Spirit was so perfect that our imitation must be very imperfect. But we have fellowship thus:

(1) The lowly born and despised disciple may have fellowship with the sufferings of Him whom sinners contemned because He was the carpenters son.

(2) The poor may have fellowship with Him who had not where to lay His head.

(3) The hidden disciple, called to stand and wait, may have fellowship with Him who lived, with but one exception, in the seclusion of Nazareth for thirty years.

(4) The tempted likewise.

(5) The despised.

(6) The forsaken.

(7) The agonized; and

(8) The dying.

II. Wherefore is this fellowship desirable?

1. Our enjoyment of the everlasting benefits of Christs sufferings is dependent on this fellowship.

2. It assists our comprehension of Christs love.

3. We learn to value more highly what has been secured by Christs suffering.

4. It tends to relieve the burden of our sorrows.

5. It extinguishes our love for the world.

III. How may i attain it? Like Paul, you must count all things loss. Such knowledge requires much sacrifice.

1. If you pride yourself on your family you can have no fellowship with Him who endured contempt as the carpenters son.

2. If your great aim is to be wealthy you can have no fellowship with the sufferings of Christ in His poverty.

3. If your object is applause, what communion can there be between you and the despised and rejected of men? (S. Martin.)

The fellowship of Christs sufferings

I. In relation to pain.

1. The pains of life are as various as bodies and souls. Our sensibilities are very various; one thing hurts one person and another another; what is agony to me my neighbour scarcely feels. This is true of the roughnesses of life, its calumnies, its disappointments; of those trials which come through the affections, and those which come through the ambitions of our nature. And those to whom sorrow does not come go in quest of it; they have self-made troubles as hard to endure as those God sends. Nay, there is this compensation, that real suffering drives out imaginary, and where the lot is that of want or anguish the distresses of mere sentiment are excluded. But no Christian escapes distress of some kind.

2. But in all this there is lacking as yet the essential feature of a fellowship in Christs sufferings. For this faith is needful, and devotion, submission, the support of a heavenly arm, and the expectation of a heavenly home. St. Pauls life was Christ. All his desires, interests, objects, were swallowed up in the living to Christs glory. It was in this sort of life that trouble met Him (2Co_6:5). What becomes of us when we drag ourselves into this comparison. But if we suffer no great things on Christs behalf, let us see at least that common life is lived in remembrance of Him, lifes pleasures subordinated to His will, lifes anxieties, sorrows, sicknesses, endured patiently in His strength.

II. In relation to sin. In the highest sense we cannot share Christs sufferings, and, thank God, need not. He has done all. We can add nothing. But that conflict with sin, with its assaults, wiles, contradictions, and perversenesses, temptations which He waged, every one of His servants must have his share, and that conflict means suffering, as every man who has had to do battle with a besetting sin will bear witness. He carries its scars yet, and will carry them to his grave. As Christ, the Captain of our salvation, resisted unto blood, striving against sin, so must we, and in the midst of the conflict remember that He is with you (1Jn_4:4; 2Ki_6:15-17). (Dean Vaughan.)

Christ suffering in His members

Some two hundred years ago, there was a dark period of suffering in Scotland, when deeds of bloody cruelty were committed on Gods people, not out done by Indian butcheries. One day the tide is flowing in Solway Firth, rushing like a race horse with snowy mane to the shore. It is occupied by groups of weeping spectators. They keep their eyes fixed on two objects out upon the wet sands. There, two women, each tied fast by their arms and limbs to a stake, stand within the sea mark; and many an earnest prayer is going up to heaven that Christ who bends from His throne to the sight would help them now in their dreadful hour of need. The elder of the two is staked furthest out. Margaret, the younger martyr, stands bound, a fair sacrifice, near by the shore. Well, on the big billows come, hissing to their naked feet; on, and further on they come, death riding on the top of the waves, and eyed by these tender women with unflinching courage. The waters rise and rise, till, amid a scream and cry of horror from the shore, the lessening form of her that had death first to face, is lost in the foam of the surging wave. It recedes, but only to return, and now, the sufferer gasping for breath, her death struggle is begun; and now for Margarets trial, and her noble answer. What see you yonder? said their murderers as they pointed to her fellow confessor in the suffocating agonies of a protracted death. Response full of the boldest faith, and brightest hope; she firmly answered, I see Christ suffering in one of His own members. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)

The fellowship of Christs sufferings

A dear suffering Christian on a bed of sickness, which has now proved the portal of heaven, shrank for a while from the prospect of prolonged anguish which opened before her. In the vision of the morning there appeared to her a minute crown twined here and there with thorns, and by the side of this tiny ensign of the Saviours deep, abounding love, lay another crown, composed wholly of thorns, large murderous spines, such as doubtless composed the wreath of painful mockery that bound the brow of the Son of God. I thought, said she, the angels might have brought it; for some one seemed to say, pointing to the large heavy crown, I wore this for thee; wear thine for Me, and meekly she bent her head, and wore the wreath, and now she has laid it by for the crown which she wears. (Anna Shipton.)

Sweetness of fellowship with Christ

Oh! how sweet a cross it is to see a cross betwixt Christ and us; to hear our Redeemer say, at every sigh, and every blow, and every loss of a believer, Half mine! (S. Rutherford.)

Fellowship with Christs suffering

An intimate friend of Handels called upon him just as he was in the middle of setting the words of He was despised to music, and found the great composer sobbing with tears, so greatly had this passage and the rest of his mornings work affected the master. (Musical Anecdotes.)

Vicarious suffering common

Suffering in human life is very widely vicarious. Every man feels this in himself; one part of his being paying anothers penalty. If he loves overmuch, it is not love that suffers, but conscientiousness. If his passions are unduly excited, it is his moral nature that feels the transgression. If the brain be overwrought, the body feels it. The first lesson of life is one of vicarious suffering. As we go to the ship to see friends depart, and leave them with cheers and benedictions, and wafted kisses; so, when a young spirit is about to be launched into this earthly life, one would think that troops of angels would attend it, and with hope and gladness see it on its way. But no. Silently it passes the bounds of the unseen land; and the gate which opens to admit it to this is a gate of tears and moans. Through the sorrow of another is it ushered into existence. Love cannot clasp all it yearns for in its bosom, without first suffering for it. The child lives upon its parents life. The child which has no one to suffer for it is a miserable wretch. And from this point onward, in every relation of life, one man suffers for anothers benefit. It is the law of social life; and I do not see why we should think it strange that Christ obeyed the same law, only in a grander way. (H. W. Beecher.)

Fellowship with suffering longed for

Thuanus tells, that a Gallic lord being led forth to martyrdom in company with some equally faithful, though plebeian professors, saw that out of regard to his rank the officers put on him no chains, while each of his brethren bore them; upon which he cried, Let me, I pray you, be clipped of none of my honours; I, too, for love of Jesus, would wear a chain! (S. Coley.)

Being made conformable unto His death--The death of Christ is presented to us in three different lights.

1. As the noblest expression of Divine love for man; as the infinitely meritorious price of our redemption; as the only safe ground of a trembling sinners hope.

2. As the strongest and most endearing motive to holiness of life--constraining us.

3. As a suitable pattern for imitation, which is the meaning here.

I. Let us analyse this eminently distinguishing feature of Christian attainment. There is conformity--

1. To the principles involved in the Saviours death. It was not merely an affecting and mysterious historical event. It represents the principles which lie at the foundation of Gods moral character and government, and are most vitally connected with mans hopes as a guilty and helpless being.

(1) These principles are--

(a) That Jehovah is a just and holy Being, and that evil cannot dwell with Him.

(b) That the Divine administration implies the punishment of sin as well as the reward of righteousness.

(c) That the moral law of God is a transcript of His own character, and as such, must be vindicated in all its honours and claims.

(d) That God has an unalterable right to the obedience of His creatures.

(e) That satisfaction must he given to the demands of the perfect law before transgressors can be admitted to mercy.

(f) That without shedding of blood is no remission of sins.

(2) To these principles the mind of the believer must and will be conformed.

(a) He acquiesces in them as essential and worthy of God.

(b) He looks on man as a guilty being and on God as a righteous judge.

(c) He adores and admires the holiness as well as the love of Jehovah.

(d) He contemplates with delight at the foot of the Cross the harmony of the Divine attributes.

(e) And in opposition to the infidel who derides the scheme, the Socinian who extracts from it all its value, the Pharisee who seeks to achieve a salvation for himself, he exclaims, God forbid (Gal_6:16; 1Co_2:2).

2. In the motives which prompted to it.

(1) Love to God and man; the former because God s honour required vindication; the latter because man needed mercy. This love, of course, passeth knowledge, and in a sense cannot be imitated; but still in the experience of its benefits we may be conformed to it and cherish a corresponding feeling towards God and man, by giving to our Creator and Redeemer the highest place in our affections and service, and by devoting ourselves to the welfare of mankind.

(2) A holy desire to glorify God in the destruction of sin and the advancement of universal holiness. We are conformed to this when the Divine glory is the end of all our actions, and when we wage war against sin.

3. In the ends for which He died.

(1) As a witness for truth; and we must conform ourselves to this by acknowledging the reality and Divine original of truth thus attested.

(2) To expiate the guilt of sin: to conform to this we must repent, believe, and accept His salvation fully, and seek the salvation of others.

4. In the temper and spirit of His death. He suffered--

(1) Voluntarily and cheerfully--do we suffer willingly?

(2) With patience and resignation--are we stubborn?

(3) With meek benevolence--are we revengeful?

(4) In the exercise of lively faith--do we give way to despair?

II. We shall deduce from the subject those illustrations of the scheme of practical Christianity it is fitted to unfold. We have an illustration of--

1. The practical character of the doctrine of the atonement. Having for one of its main objects deliverance from the power of sin and the promotion of universal holiness, it is fitted to cherish a love of practical godliness.

2. The inseparable connection between faith and holiness. Without faith, the principles and motives which most powerfully prompt to holiness could not gain access to the mind: without holiness, there can be no genuine faith, for the graces of holiness are its effects and fruits.

3. The subject enters deeply into the essentials of Christian experience and life. Religion does not consist in the use of means; the ordinances of religion are only the means of leading the soul to God and holiness, of being conformable to Christs death. (R. Burns, D. D.)

Conformity to Christs death

The participle being made is present, and implies a process that is going on and will continue through life--not an act like justification, simultaneous with the exercise of faith. Made conformable means being cast in the same form, being brought into such a community and likeness that one sketch, outline, shape, will represent both.

I. This shaping in the form of Christs death is one of the Christians earnest endeavours and most cherished objects. No advantage in life, nothing that tempts ordinary men can attract Him in comparison of this. Here is a text for us to try ourselves by. What is the shape that we must be like. Christs death was a death unto sin. In that He died He died unto sin. The suffering of the previous verse is a different thing from this, yet it co-exists with this in the spiritual life. Fellowship with Christs sufferings is the endless conflict of the believers course, ever wearing and wearying Him. Conformity to Christs death is the deep calm of indifference to sin with all its allurements, ever setting in together with and over against the conflict. The two are in different portions of His being. The conflict with sin is carried on at the surface, and also very much beneath the surface--even in the region where the two wills, the old and the new, are ever struggling and wrestling for the mastery; and sometimes its more terrible paroxysms seem to penetrate, and shake, and threaten to carry away the whole man: but there is an inner depth, in which the peace which passeth understanding has its hold and reign: and there, in that centre of his being, is this death to sin going on. As Christ died to sin, passed out from the penalty and imputation of sin, He had no more to do with it. So each of the brethren who are being made like Him are losing part and interest in sin, weaned from its power, alienated from its motives and objects; the distance ever widening between it and them; the breach becoming ever more and more irreconcilable.

II. The method by which this is brought about.

1. Not by any mere strong action of the will--any acquired philosophical indifference to sin and temptation. Sin is too strong for any resolve.

2. No; in our Christian life, Christ is first and midst and last: and no mere moral strength or determination can be reckoned on as accessory to Him in his great work. This being conformed to Christs death is brought in, is carried on, is completed, by faith. When I first see Christ linked to me by the bonds of Gods everlasting covenant, then faith begins its work within me; then, the first utter dislike to sin, as sin, is bred in my heart.

3. But faith in what? In Christs death, in its atoning efficacy and its necessity. Then alone does sin appear in its proper hatefulness when I see that this was what helped to nail Him there; when I enter into my Redeemers woe and understand what it was that caused it. I become knit to Him and weaned from it--crucified with Him, so that though the motions towards it are yet felt in my body, yet I have no disposition in its favour.

III. Let us follow out this conformity into some of its attendant circumstances.

1. We have seen it in its total severance from sin and sinners. But where were they meantime? Did they rest quiet? Did they allow this ever lasting protest against the pollution, the selfishness, the hatefulness of sin before God, to be lifted up in peace? Ah no: there they were beneath His cross, scoffing at Him and aggravating His death pangs. And so it will be with us. Sin and the devil will not let us alone in its various stages. The nearer we approach in like ness to Him, the more will His enemies treat us as they treated Him. No longer by the scourge, and the crown of thorns, and the cross--but by mockery and scorn, by coldness and alienation, which in our present state of ripened social order are weapons as powerful as any outward persecution was then.

2. He died to all human ambition. Whatever projects His followers may have formed for Him were defeated by it. Just so thy fondly cherished hopes of earthly distinction must be laid down at the foot of His cross; thou must be content, so far as they are concerned, to be stripped and nailed to the cross of shame, and made a spectacle to men.

3. All self-righteousness is nailed to the cross, His was the only meritorious death. If I am being conformed to it I am nothing; nothing as ground of hope, or as cause of fear.

4. Nor should we entirely dismiss such a theme without one look onwards. If we be dead with Christ, we shall also live with Him. The Christian should never end with Calvary, nor with the mortification of the body, nor with deadness to sin; but ever carry his thoughts onward to that blessed consummation, to which these are the entrance and necessary conditions. (Dean Alford.)

The martyr spirit

A Chinese convert, when trying to persuade his countrymen to give up their idols and believe in Christ, was ridiculed and scorned, and at last pelted with mud and stones till his face was red with the blood that flowed from the cuts in his temples. Mr. Johnson, the missionary, meeting him, said, You have had bad treatment today. He smilingly replied, They may kill me if they will love Jesus.

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Philippians

SAVING KNOWLEDGE

Php 3:10-11 {R.V.}.

We have seen how the Apostle was prepared to close his letter at the beginning of this chapter, and how that intention was swept away by the rush of new thoughts. His fervid faith caught fire when he turned to think of what he had lost, and how infinitely more he had gained in Christ. His wealth is so great that it cannot be crowded into the narrow space of one brief sentence, and after all the glowing words which precede our text, he feels that he has not yet adequately set forth either his present possessions or his ultimate aims. So here he continues the theme which might have seemed most fully dealt with in the great thoughts that occupied us in the former sermon, but which still wait to be completed here. They are most closely connected with the former, and the unity of the sentence is but a parallel to the oneness of the idea. The elements of our present text constitute a part of the Apostle’s aim in life, and may be dealt with as such.

I. Paul’s life’s aim was the knowledge of Christ.

That sounds an anti-climax after ‘Gain’ and ‘Be in Him.’ These phrases seem to express a much more intimate relation than this, but we must note that it is no mere theoretical or intellectual knowledge which is intended. Such knowledge would need no surrender or suffering ‘the loss of all things.’ We can only buy the knowledge of Christ at such a rate, but we can buy knowledge about Him very much cheaper. Such knowledge would not be worth the price; it lies on the surface of the soul, and does nothing. Many a man amongst us has it, and it is of no use to him. If Paul had undergone all that he had undergone and sacrificed all that he had given up, and for his reward had only gained accurate knowledge about Christ, he had certainly wasted his life and made a bad bargain. But as always, so here, to know means knowledge based upon experience. Did Christ mean that a correct creed was eternal life when He said, ‘This is life eternal to know Thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom Thou has sent?’ Did Paul mean the dry light of the understanding when he prayed that the Ephesians might know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, in order to be filled with all the fulness of God? Clearly we have to go much deeper down than that superficial interpretation in order to reach the reality of the New Testament conception of knowledge. It is co-extensive with life, and is built upon inward experience. In a word, it is one aspect of winning Jesus. It is consciousness contemplating its riches, counting its gains. As a man knows the bliss of parental or wedded love only by having it, or as he knows the taste of wine only by drinking it, or the glory of music only by hearing it, and the brightness of the day only by seeing it, so we know Christ only by winning Him. There must first be the perception and possession by sense or emotion, and then the reflection on the possession by understanding. This applies to all religious truth. It must be possessed ere it be fully known. Like the new name written upon the Apocalyptic stone, ‘No one knoweth but he that receiveth it.’

The knowledge which was Paul’s life’s aim was knowledge of a Person: the object determines the nature of the knowledge. The mental act of knowing a proposition or a science or even of knowing about a person by hearing of him is different from that of knowing people when we have lived beside them. We need not be afraid of attaching too familiar a meaning to this word of our text, if we say that it implies personal acquaintance with the Christ whom we know. Of course we come to know Him in the first instance through the medium of statements about Him, and we cannot too strongly insist, in these days of destructive criticism, on the absolute necessity of accepting the Gospel statements as to the life of Jesus as the only possible method of knowing Him. But then, beyond that acceptance of the record must come the application and appropriation of it, and the transmutation of a historical fact into a personal experience. We may take an illustration from any of the Scriptural truths about Jesus:--For instance, Scripture declares Him to be our Redeemer. One man believes Him to be so, welcomes Him into his life as such, and finds Him to be such. Another man believes Him to be so, but never puts His redeeming power to the proof. Is the knowledge of these two rightly called by the same name? That which comes after experience is surely not rightly designated by the same title as that which has no vivification nor verification of such a sort to build on, and is the mere product of the understanding. There is nothing which the great mass of so-called Christians need more than to have forced into their thoughts the difference between these two kinds of knowledge of Christ. There are thousands of them who, if asked, are ready to profess that they know Jesus, but to whom He has never been anything more than a partially understood article of an uncared for creed, and has never been in living contact with their needs, nor known for their strength in weakness, their comforter in sorrow, ‘their life in death,’ their all in all.

To deepen that experimental knowledge of Jesus is a worthy aim for the whole life, and is a process that may go on indefinitely through it all. To know Him more and more is to have more of heaven in us. To be penetrating ever deeper into His fulness, and finding every day new depths to penetrate is to have a fountain of freshness in our dusty days that will never fail or run dry. There is only one inexhaustible person, and that is Jesus Christ. We have all fulness in our Lord: we have already received all when we received Him. Are we advancing in the experience that is the parent of knowing Him? Do new discoveries meet us every day as if we were explorers in a virgin land? To have this for our aim is enough for satisfaction, for blessedness, and for growth. To know Him is a liberal education.

II. That knowledge involves knowing the power of His Resurrection.

The power of His Resurrection is an expression which covers a wide ground. There are several distinct and well-marked powers ascribed to it in Paul’s writings. It has a demonstrative force in reference to our Lord’s person and work. For He is by it ‘declared to be the Son of God with power.’ That rising again from the dead, taken in conjunction with the fact that He dieth no more, but is ascended up on high, and in conjunction with His own words concerning Himself and His Resurrection, sets Him forth before the world as the Son of God, and is the solemn divine approval and acceptance of His work.

It has a revealing power in regard to the condition of humanity in death. It is the one fact which establishes immortality, and which not only establishes it, but casts some light on the manner of it. The possibility of personal life after, and therefore, in death, the unbroken continuity of being, the possibility of a resurrection, and a glorifying of this corporeal frame, with all the far-reaching consequences of these truths in the triumph they give over death, in the support and substance they afford to the else-shadowy idea of immortality, in the lofty place which they assign to the bodily frame, and the conception which they give of man’s perfection as consisting of body, soul, and spirit--these thoughts have flashed light into all the darkness of the grave, have narrowed to a mere strip of coast-line the boundaries of the kingdom of death, have proclaimed love as the victor in her contest with that shrouded horror. The basis of them all is Christ’s Resurrection; its power in this respect is the power to illuminate, to console, to certify, to wrench the sceptre from the hands of death, and to put it in the pierced hands of the Living One that was dead, and is Lord both of the dead and the living.

Further, the Resurrection is treated by Paul as having a power for our justification, in so far as the risen Lord bestows upon us by His risen life the blessings of His righteousness. Paul also represents the Resurrection of Christ as having the power of quickening our Spiritual life. I need not spend time in quoting the many passages where His rising from the dead, and His life after the Resurrection, are treated as the type and pattern of our lives: and are not only regarded as pattern, but are also regarded as the power by which that new life of ours is brought about. It has the power of raising us from the death of sin, and bringing us into a new life of the Spirit. And finally, the Resurrection of Christ is regarded as having the power of raising His servants from the grave to the full possession of His own glorious life, and so it is the power of our final victory over death.

Now I do not know that we are entitled to exclude any of these powers from view. The broad words of the text include them all, but perhaps the two last are mainly meant, and of these chiefly the former.

The risen life of Christ quickens and raises us, and that not merely as a pattern, but as a power. It is only if we are in Him that there is so real a unity of life between Him and us that there enters into us some breath of His own life.

That risen life of the Saviour which we share if we have Him, enters into our nature as leaven into the three measures of meal; transforming and quickening it, gives new directions, tastes, motives, impulses, and power. It bids and inclines us to seek the things that are above, and its great exhortation to the hearts in which it dwells, to fix themselves there, and to forsake the things that are on the earth, is based upon the fact that they have died, and ‘their life is hid with Christ in God.’ Without that leaven the life that we live is a death, because it is lived in the ‘lusts of the flesh,’ doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind. There is no real union with Jesus Christ, of which the direct issue is not a living experience of the power of His Resurrection in bringing us to the likeness of itself in regard to our freedom from the bondage to sin, and to our presenting ourselves unto God as alive from the dead, and our members as instruments of righteousness unto God. It is a solemn thought which we all need to press upon our consciences, that the only infallible sign that we have been in any measure quickened together with Christ and raised up with Him is that we have ceased to live in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind. The risen life of Jesus may indefinitely increase, and will do so in the measure in which we honestly make it our life’s aim to know Him and the power of His Resurrection.

III. The experience of the power of Christ’s Resurrection is inseparable from the fellowship of His sufferings.

We must not suppose that Paul’s solemn and awful words here trench in the smallest degree on the solitary unapproachableness of Christ’s death. He would have answered, as in fact he does answer, the appeal of the prophetic sufferer, ‘Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow’ with the strongest negative. No other human lips have ever tasted, or can ever taste, a cup of such bitterness as He drained for us all, and no other human lips have ever been so exquisitely sensitive to the bitterness which they have drunk. The identification of Himself with a sinful world, the depth and closeness of His community of feeling with all sorrow, the consciousness of the glory which He had left, and the perpetual sense of the hostility into which He had come, set Christ’s sufferings by themselves as surely as the effects that flow from them declare that they need no repetition, and cannot be degraded by any parallel whilst the world lasts.

But yet His Death, like His Resurrection, is set forth in Scripture as being a type and power of ours. We have to die to the world by the power of the Cross. If we truly trust in His sacrifice there will operate upon us motives which separate and detach us from our old selves and the old world. A fundamental, ethical, and spiritual change is effected on us through faith. We were dead in sin, we are dead to sin. We have to blend the two thoughts of the Christian life as being a daily dying and a continual resurrection in order to get the whole truth of the double aspect of it.

It may be a question whether the Apostle is here referring to outward or inward and ethical sorrows, but perhaps we should not do justice to the thought unless we extend it to cover both of these. Certainly if his theology was but the generalising of his experience, he had ample material in his daily life for knowing the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings. One of his most frequently recurring and most cherished thoughts is, that to suffer for Christ is to suffer with Christ, and in it he found and teaches us to find strength to endure, and patience to outlast any sorrows that may swoop upon us like birds of prey because we are Christians. Happy shall we be if Christ’s sufferings are ours, because it is our union with Him and our likeness to Him, not to ourselves, our sins, or our worldliness, that is their occasion. There is an old legend that Peter was crucified head downwards, because he felt himself unworthy to be as his Master. We may well feel that nothing which we can ever bear for Him is worthy to be compared with what He has borne for us, and be the more overwhelmed with the greatness of the condescension, and the humility of the love which reckon our light affliction, which is but for a moment, along with the heavy weight which He bore, and the blessed issue of which outlasts time and enriches eternity.

But there is another sense in which it is a worthy aim of our lives that our sufferings may be felt to be fellowship with His. That is a blessed sorrow which brings us closer to our Lord. That is a wholesome sorrow of which the issue is an intenser faith in Him, a fuller experience of His sufficiency. The storm blows us well when it blows us to His breast, and sorrow enriches us, whatever it may take away, which gives us fuller and more assured possession of Jesus.

But when we are living in fellowship with Jesus, that union works in two directions, and while on the one hand we may then humbly venture to feel that our sufferings for Him are sufferings with Him, we may thankfully feel, too, that in all our affliction He is afflicted. If His sufferings are ours we may be sure that ours are His. And how different they all become when we are certain of His sympathy! It is possible that we may have a kind of common consciousness with our Lord, if our whole hearts and wills are kept in close touch with Him, so that in our experience there may be a repetition in a higher form of that strange experience alleged to be familiar in hypnotism, where the bitter in one mouth is tasted in another.

So, what we ought to make our aim is that in our lives our growing knowledge of Christ should lead to the two results, so inexorably intertwined, of daily death and daily resurrection, and that we may be kept faithful to Him so that our outward sufferings may be caused by our union with Him, and not by our own faithlessness, and may be discerned by us to be fellowship with His. Then we shall also feel that He bears ours with us, and sorrow itself will be calmed and beautified into a silent bliss, as the chill peaks when the morning strikes them glow with tender pink, and seem soft and warm, though they are grim rock and ice-cold snow. Then some faint echo of His history ‘who was acquainted with grief’ may be audible in our outward lives and we, too, may have our Gethsemane and our Calvary. It may not be presumption in us to say ‘We are able’ when He asks ‘Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of’? nor terror to hear Him prophesy ‘Ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of,’ for we shall remember ‘joint-heirs in Christ, if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together.’

IV. The end attained.

The Christian life as here manifested is even in its highest forms manifestly incomplete. It is a reflected light, and like the reflected light in the heavens, advances by imperceptible degrees to fill the whole silver round. It may be ‘e’en in its imperfections beautiful,’ but it assuredly has ‘a ragged edge.’ The hypothetical form of the last words of our text does not so much imply a doubt of the possibility of attaining the result as the recognition of the indispensable condition of effort on the part of him who attains it. That effort forthcoming, the attainment is certain.

The Revised Version makes a slight correction which involves a great matter, in reading ‘the resurrection from the dead.’ It is necessary to insist on this change in rendering, not because it implies that only saints are raised, but because Paul is thinking of that first resurrection of which the New Testament habitually speaks. ‘The dead in Christ shall rise first’ as he himself declared in his earliest epistle, and the seer in the Apocalypse shed a benediction on ‘him that hath part in the first resurrection.’ Our knowledge of that solemn future is so fragmentary that we cannot venture to draw dogmatic inferences from the little that has been declared to us, but we cannot forget the distinct words of Jesus in which He not only plainly declares a universal resurrection, but as plainly proclaims that it falls into two parts, one a ‘resurrection of life,’ and one a ‘resurrection of judgment.’ The former may well be the final aim of a Christian life: the latter is a fate which one would think no sane man would deliberately provoke. Each carries in its name its dominant characteristic, the one full of attractiveness, the other partially unveiling depths of shame and punitive retributions which might appal the stoutest heart.

This resurrection of life is the last result of the power of Christ’s Resurrection received into and working on the human spirit. It is plain enough that if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in us there is no term to its operations until our mortal bodies also are quickened by His Spirit that dwelleth in us. The ethical and spiritual resurrection in the present life finds its completion in the bodily resurrection in the future. It cannot be that the transformation wrought in a human life shall be complete until it has flowed outwards into and permeated the whole of manhood, body, soul, and spirit. The three measures of meal have each to be influenced before ‘the whole is leavened.’ If we duly consider the elements necessary to a perfect realisation of the divine ideal of humanity, we shall discern that redemption must have a gospel to bring to the body as well as to the spirit. Whatever has been devastated by sin must be healed by Jesus. It is not necessary to suppose that the body which dies is the body which rises again, rather the Apostle’s far-reaching series of antitheses between that which is sown and that which is raised leads us to think that the natural body, which has passed through corruption, and the particles of which have been gathered into many different combinations, does not become the spiritual body. The person who dies is the person who lives through death, and who assumes the body of the resurrection, and it is the person, not the elements which make up the personality, who is spoken of as risen from the dead. The vesture may be different, but the wearer is the same.

So that resurrection from the dead is the end of a supernatural life begun here and destined to culminate hereafter. It is the last step in the manifestation of our being in Christ, and so is being prepared for here by every step in advance in gaining Jesus. It should ever be before every Christian soul that participation in Christ hereafter is conditioned by its progress in likeness to Him here. The Resurrection from the dead is not a gift which can be bestowed apart from a man’s moral state. If he dies having had no knowledge by experience of the power of Christ’s Resurrection, there is nothing in the fact of death to give him that knowledge, and it is impossible to bring ‘any means’ to bear on him by which he will attain unto the ‘resurrection from the dead.’ If God could give that gift irrespective of a man’s relations to Jesus, He would give it to all. Let us ask ourselves, then, is it not worth making the dominant aim of our lives the same as that of Paul’s? How stands our account then? Are we not wise traders presenting a good balance-sheet when we show entered on the one side the loss of all things, and on the other the gaining of Christ, and the attaining the resurrection from the dead, the perfect transformation of body, soul, and spirit, into the perfect likeness of the perfect Lord? Does the other balance-sheet show the man as equally solvent who enters on one side the gain of a world, and on the other a Christless life, to be followed by a resurrection in which is no joy, no advance, no life, but which is a resurrection of judgment? May we all be found in Him, and attain to the resurrection from the dead!

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Chapter 13

RESURRECTION LIFE AND DAILY DYING.

Php_3:10-11

WE have still other aspects to consider of that "gain" which the Apostle descried in Christ, for the sake of which he had cast so much away.

To prize the righteousness of faith was an element in the true knowledge of Christ; but it was so far from exhausting that knowledge that it only opened a door of progress, and brought near the most stirring possibilities. For, indeed, to be found in Christ having that righteousness meant that God in Christ was his, and had begun to communicate Himself in eternal life. Now this must still reveal itself in further and fuller knowledge of Christ. According to the Apostles conception, that which Christ means to be to us, that which we may attain to be by Christ, opens progressively to the soul that has been won to this pursuit; it comes into view and into experience in a certain growing knowledge. It is a practical historical career; and the Apostle was set on achieving it, not by strength or wisdom of his own, but by the continual communication of grace, responding to desire and prayer and endeavour.

We must not forget, what has more than once been said, that this earthly life of ours is the scene in which the discipline goes on, in which the career is achieved. It is the calling here and now, not at some other stage of being, that the Apostle is thinking of for himself and for his disciples. And as earthly life is the scene, so earthly life also furnishes the occasions and opportunities by which the knowledge of Christ is to advance. Any other way of it is for us inconceivable. This life in all the various forms which it assumes for different men, in all the changing experiences which it brings to each of us-life on the earth we know so well-with its joy and sorrow, its labour and rest, its gifts and its bereavements, its friends and foes, its times and places, its exercise and interest for body and mind, for intellect and heart and conscience, with its temptations and its better influences, -life must furnish the opportunities for acquiring this practical knowledge of Christ. For that which falls to us, if we are in Christ, is a certain blessed well-being (itself an unfolding of Christs wisdom and grace). And this must impart itself, and reveal itself, in our actual experience, but in an experience which we pass through under the guidance of Christ.

This familiar life, then, is the scene; it alone can furnish the opportunities. And yet what the Apostle apprehends, as coming into possession and experience, is a life of a higher style, a life set on a nobler key: it is a life that has its centre and source and true type elsewhere; it belongs to a higher region; indeed, it is a life whose perfect play pertains to another, coming world. Capacity for such a life is not something superhuman; it is congenital to man, made in the image of God. And yet, if these capacities unfold, mans life must, in the end, become other than we know it now; with a new proportioning of elements, with a new order of experience, with new harmonies, with aptitudes for love and service and worship that are beyond us now. Only now, they begin and grow; they are now to be aimed at, and realised in earnest and first-fruit, and embraced in hope. For they are elements in the knowledge of Christ, who is ours to know.

This is indicated in the Apostles aspiration after knowing Christ in the power of His resurrection, and his yearning if by any means he might attain to the resurrection of the dead.

The resurrection of Christ marked the acceptance of His work by the Father, and revealed the triumph in which that work ended. Death and all the power of the enemy were overcome, and victory was attained. For one thing, the resurrection of Christ made sure the righteousness of faith. He rose again for our justification. So every passage of the Apostles life which proved that his confidence in that respect was not vain, that God in Christ was truly his God, was an experience of the power of Christs resurrection. But the resurrection of Christ was also His emergence-His due emergence-into the power and blessedness of victorious life. In the Person of Christ life in God, and unto God, had descended into the hard conditions set for Him who would associate a world of sinners to Himself. In the resurrection the triumph of that enterprise came to light. Now, done with sin, and free from death, and asserting His superiority to all humiliation and all conflict, He rose in the fulness of a power which He was entitled also to communicate. He rose, with full right and power to save. And so His resurrection denotes Christ as able to inspire life, and to make it victorious in His members.

When, then, Paul says that he would know Christ in the power of His resurrection, he aims at a life (already his, but capable of far more adequate development) conformed to the life which triumphed in the risen Christ, one with that in principle, in character, and in destiny.

This was, in the meantime, to be human life on the earth, with the known elements and conditions of that life; including, in Pauls case, some that were hard enough. But it was to be transformed from within, inspired with a new meaning and aim. It was to have its elements polarised anew, organised by new forces and in a new rhythm. It was, and was to be, pervaded by peace with God, by the consciousness of redemption, by dedication to service. It was to include a recoil from evil, and a sympathy with goodness, -elements these which might be so far thought of as a reverting to the unfallen state. But it had more in it, because it was based on redemption, and rooted in Christ who died and rose again. It was baptised with the passion of gratitude; it was drawn into the effort to build up the Redeemers kingdom; and it aimed at a better country.

So while the life we know so well was the sphere in which this experience fulfilled itself, the longings it included pointed to an existence higher up and further on-to an existence only to be reached by resurrection from the dead, an existence certainly promised to be so reached. All the effort and the longing pointed to that door of hope; Paul was reaching on to the resurrection of the dead. For that blessed resurrection would consummate and fulfil the likeness to Christ and the fellowship with Him, and would usher into a manner of being where the experience of both should be unimpeded. The life of "knowing Christ" could not be contented here, could not rest satisfied short of that consummation. For indeed to be with Christ and to labour for Christ here on earth was good; yet so that to depart and be with Christ was far better.

We have here to do with the active and victorious aspect of Christian life, the energy in it that makes it new and great. It holds by a title and it draws from a source which must be looked for, both of them, high up in heaven. Something in it has already triumphed over death.

It may be felt, however, that there is some danger here lest the great words of Paul may carry us off our feet, and divorce us from terra firma altogether. Some one may ask, But what does all this mean in practice? What sort of life is it to be? Apostles can soar, perhaps; but how about the man in the workshop or in the counting-house, or the woman busied in family cares? A life in "the power of a resurrection" seems to be something that transcends earthly conditions altogether. These are perfectly fair questions, and one should try to meet them with a plain reply.

The life in view is first of all goodness in its ordinary sense, or what we call common morality-common honesty, common truthfulness, common kindness. "Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labour"; "Not slothful in business"; "Lie not one to another, seeing ye have put off the old man with his deeds." But then this common morality begins to have an uncommon heart or spirit in it, by reason of Christ. So a new love for goodness and a new energy of rejection of evil begin to work; also a new sensitiveness to discern good, where its obligation was not felt before, and to be aware of evil which, before, was tolerated. Moreover, in the heart of this "common morality" the man carries about a consciousness of his own relation to God, and also of the relation to God of all with whom he meets. This consciousness is very imperfect, sometimes perhaps almost vanishes. Yet the man is aware that an immense truth is here close to him, and he has begun to be alive to it. This consciousness tends to give a new value to all the "moralities": it awakens a new percipiency as to good and evil; in particular, the great duty of purity in relation to the man himself, and to others, acquires a new sacredness. The place and claims of self also begin to be judged by a quite new standard. In all directions possibilities of good and evil in human life are descried; and the obligation to refuse the evil and to choose the good presses with a new force. So far, the remark made a little ago is justified, that the Christian life of Paul was a life that had begun to point practically towards sinlessness, towards what we call an unfallen state; however far off it might be, as yet, from that attainment. But this would be a very limited account of the matter. The whole region of duty and privilege Godwards is lighted up now by the faith of redemption in Christ; that not only awakens gratitude, but inspires a new passion of desire and hope into all moral effort. And the man, being now aware of a kingdom of goodness set up by Christ, which is making its way to victory against all the power of evil, and being aware of the agencies by which it works, must give himself in his own place to the service of that kingdom, that he may not hurt, but help, the cause which it embodies. The new life is therefore to be an energetic life of the plainest goodness. Only faith places it in relation to the world of faith, and inspires it with the passion of love and gratitude, and amplifies it by the new horizons that fall back on all sides, and gives it a goal in the hope of life eternal.

Returning to the instance of the Apostle Paul, one observes from his account of it that the regard of the believer to Christ, such regard as may actually be attained and operative in this life, ought to fructify into desires and prayers that point beyond this life, and reach out to the resurrection of the dead. There is a contentedness with life here that is not Christian. It would agree well with a thankful use of earthly comforts, and a cheerful serenity amid earths changes, that we should feel our home and our treasure to be in another place, and the enjoyment of them to lie in a coming world. Not otherwise shall we know how to make a right Christian use and have a right Christian enjoyment of this life. We are not prepared to get the full good of this world until we are ready and willing to go out of it.

Let it be observed, also, how the Apostle strove to "attain" the resurrection of the dead. The great things of the Kingdom of God are exhibited in various connections, none of which is to be overlooked. One of these connections is here exhibited.

We know that in Scripture a distinction is made between the resurrection of the righteous and the resurrection of the wicked. A solemn obscurity rests on the manner and the principles of the latter, the resurrection to shame. But the resurrection of the just takes place in virtue of their union to Christ; it is after the example of His resurrection; it is to glory and honour. Now this resurrection, while it is most obviously a crowning blessing and benefaction coming from God, is represented also as having the character of an attainment made by us. The faith in which we turn to God is the beginning of a course leading to the "end of our faith, the salvation of our souls." This end coincides with the resurrection. Then the hour comes which completes, then the state arrives in which is completed, the redemption of the man. The resurrection rises before us, therefore, as something which, while on the one hand promised and given by God, is, on the other hand, "attained" by us. Our Lord {Luk_20:35} speaks of those who shall be "counted worthy to attain that world, and the resurrection of the dead."

The resurrection is promised to believers. It is promised to arise to them in sequel to a certain course-a history of redemption, made good in their lives. How shall the disciple verify his expectation of this final benefit? Not surely without verifying the intermediate history. The way must point towards the end-at least, must point towards it. A resurrection state, if it be like Christs, how much must it include! What purity, what high aptitudes, what delicate congenialities! The desires of the true Christian life, its aspirations and efforts, as well as the promises which animate and the influences which sustain it, all point in this direction. But how if in any case this prove unreal, deceptive; how if it be ostensible only? How if no real changes take place, or if they die out again? What if soul and body rise unchanged, the soul polluted, and so the very body bearing the stamp of old sins? What if the murderous eye of hate, or the lurid eye of lust, shall look into the eyes of Him whose eyes are as a flame of fire? Accordingly this connection of things is impressed upon us by our Apostle: {Rom_8:11} "If the Spirit of Him that raised up Christ from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal body by His Spirit which dwelleth in you." While we live here, our body, however disciplined, must still be the body of our humiliation (Php_3:21); and sin continues to beset even renewed souls. But if the Spirit of grace is even now bringing all into subjection to the obedience of Christ, enabling us to die to sin and to live to righteousness, that points forward to the completion of the work, in the resurrection to glory.

This, then, is one view in which the Apostle realises the solemnity and interest of Christian life. It is the way that leads up to such a resurrection. The resurrection rises before him as the consummate triumph of that life for which he came to Christ, the life which he longs perfectly to possess, perfectly to know. The success of his great venture is to meet Him in the rising from the dead; his course, meanwhile, is a striving onwards to it. How was it to be reached? In order to that, much must still be brought into experience of the resurrection power of Christ. Only in that strength did Paul look to be carried to the point at which, ending his course, he should lie down (if he died before Christ come) in the blessed hope of the rising from the dead. For this he looked to Christ to work mightily in him; for this he owned himself bound, under the grace of Christ, to strive mightily, if "by any means" he might attain to it. So great is this consummation; so great are those things which fitly lead up to it. Is it not a great view of Christian religion that it sends men onward in a life in which they "attain" to the resurrection of the dead? Must not that be a great history of which this is the appropriate close?

Paul, then, was eager to go forward in a life intense and mighty, drawing on a great power to sustain it, and rising into splendid effects and results. But yet, in respect of some of its aspects, it rather seemed to the Apostle to be a certain deliberate and blessed dying. At least, the life must fulfil and realise itself along such a dying; and this also, this emphatically, he pressed on to know-"the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death."

Our Lords life on earth, strong and beautiful though it was, was really at the same time his procedure towards death. He lived as one laying down His life, riot merely in one great sacrifice at the close, but from step to step along His whole earthly history. With no touch of the morbid or the fanatical, yet His course, in practice, had to be one of self-impoverishment, of loneliness, of acquaintance with energetic hostility of sin and sinners. It had to be so if it was to be faithful. He knew not where to lay His head; He endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself; He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. Even His friends, whom He so loved, and who loved Him in their imperfect way, did not love Him wisely or magnanimously, and constantly became occasions of temptation which had to be resisted. Pain and trial were the inevitable characters of the work given Him to do. It lay in His calling to put a strong and faithful negative on the natural desire for safety, for happiness, for congenial society and surroundings, for free and unembarrassed life. All this He had steadily to postpone to a period beyond the grave, and meanwhile make His way to the final crisis, at which, under a mysterious burden of extreme sorrow, accepted as the Saviours proper portion, He died for our sins. By this sacrifice He did, no doubt, relieve His followers of a burden which they never could have borne. But yet in doing so He made it possible for them to enter, happily and hopefully, on a life so far like His own. Their life, too, comes to be governed by a decision, maintained and persisted in, for Gods will, and against the impulse, in their case the impure and treacherous impulse, of their own will. They also, in their turn, but under His influence and with His loving succour, have so to live as in that life to die. They learn to say "No" for their Masters sake to many objects which strongly appeal to them. They consent to postpone the period of perfectly harmonious life, free and unimpeded, to the time which lies beyond death. They must count their true life to be that which, perfectly conformed to and associated with their Masters life, they shall live in another scene of things. Meanwhile, as to the elements of this world, the life which stands in these must die, or they must die to it, growing into the mind of their Lord.

It is difficult to speak of this without, on the one hand, conveying a strained and unreal view of the Christians attitude towards the present life, or, on the other hand, weakening too much the sense of "conformity to His death." In the first place the Christians dying is mainly, and certainly it is first of all, a dying to sin, a mortifying the flesh with the affections and lusts. It is the practical renunciation of evil, along with the maintenance of the watchfulness and self-discipline needed in order to be ready to renounce evil when it comes. Evil has to be rejected, not merely by itself, but at the cost of those earthly interests which are involved in the surrender to it, however dear or constraining those interests may seem to be; so that conformity to Christs death, if it covered no more, would still cover a great deal of ground. But it seems to cover something more-namely, a general loosening of the grasp upon this life, or on the temporary and sensible elements of it, in view of the worth and certainty of the higher and the better life. This life, indeed, as long as we are in it, can never lose its claims upon us, as the sphere of our duty, and the scene of our training. Here we have our place to fill, our relations to sustain, our part to play, our ministries to perform. In all these ways of it we have some good to do, of lower or loftier kinds; in all, we have many lessons to learn, which crowd upon us to the last; through all we have to carry the faith of the unseen Kingdom and the unseen Lord; and in all these aspects of earthly life, if God gives us any cheering experience of earthly brightness, surely it is to be taken most thankfully. It is a poor way of construing the conformity to Christs death, to renounce interest in the life of which we are a part, and the world which is the scene of it. But the interest should fasten more intently on the things which interest our Lord, and eagerness of spirit about earthly good for ourselves must give place and subside.

And yet, when one thinks of the beauty and sweetness of much that pertains to our earthly existence, and of the goodness of God in material or temporal gifts, and of the thankfulness with which Christian hearts are to take these when they are given, and are to walk with God in the use of them, one feels the risk of involving oneself here in extravagance or in contradiction. We are not going to maintain that the Apostle would shut himself out, or us, from interest or delight in the innocent beauty or gladness of the earth. But yet is it not true that we are all passing on to death, and in death are to be parted from all this? Is it not true that as Christians we consent to dying; we count it the good discipline of Christs people that they should die, and pass so into the better life? Is it not true that our life as Christians should train us to maintain this mind deliberately and habitually, calmly and gladly? For indeed this life, at its purest and best, still offers to us a vision of good that is apt to steal our hearts away from the supreme good, the best and highest. Now that best and highest rises before us, as practically to be made ours, in the resurrection.

Meanwhile, it is well, no doubt, that we should cherish a frank and thankful gladness in all earthly good and earthly beauty that can be taken as from the Fathers hand. Yet there should grow upon us an inward consent, strengthening as the days go by, that this shall not endure; that it shall not be our permanent possession; that it shall be loosely held, as erelong to be parted from. Such a mind should grow, not because our hearts are cold to the present country of our being, but because they are warming towards a better country. These earthly things are good, but they are not ours; we have only a lease of them, terminable at any time. Who shall bring us to that which is, and shall eternally be, our very own?

So Christ our Master passed through life, with an open eye and heart for the fair and the lovable around Him, for flowers and little children, and for what was estimable or attractive in men, even in a natural way. Surely all was dear to Him on which he could see the trace of the Creators holy hands. Yet He passed on and passed by, going forward to death and consenting to die, His face set steadfastly to a joy before Him which could not be realised by lingering here.

Now let this be especially observed, that while we may here recognise a practical lesson to be learned, the wisest of us may also recognise it as a lesson we could not undertake to teach to ourselves. To oppose sin, when conscience and Gods word warn us of its presence, is at least something definite and plain. But how to take the right attitude and bear the right mind towards this various, manifold, engrossing, wonderful human life, as it unfolds for us here-how shall that be done? Some have tried to answer by amputating large sections of human experience. But that is not the way. For, indeed, it is in human life itself-in this present, and, for the present, the only form of our existence-that we must take the right view of human life, and form the right mind about it. Moreover, our conditions are varying continually, from the state of the little child, open to every influence that strikes the sense, to the state of the old man, whom age is shutting up in a crippled and stunted existence. The just equipoise of soul for one stage of life, could it be attained, would not be the just equipoise for the next.

The truth is, there is no ready-made theory here for any of us. All our attainments in it are tentative and provisional; which does not hinder, however, that they may be very real. When we believe in Christ we become aware that there is a lesson in this department to be learned, and we become willing, in a measure, to learn it. But we should learn little were it not for three great teachers that take us in hand.

The first is the inevitable conflict with sin and temptation. The Christian must, at all events, strive against known sin, and he must hold himself ready to resist the onset of temptation, watching and praying. In this discipline he soon learns how sin is entangled for him with much that in other respects seems desirable or good; he learns that in rejecting sin he must forego some things which on other accounts he gladly would embrace. It is often a painful conflict through which he has to pass. Now in seeking help from his Lord, and entering into the fellowship of the mind of Christ, he is not only strengthened to repel the sin, but also learns to submit willingly to any impoverishment or abridgment of earthly life which the conflict entails. He is taught in practice, now in one form, now in another, to count all things but loss-to lower the overweening estimate of earthly treasure and let it go, dying to it with his dying Lord.

Then, besides, there is the discipline of suffering. Sorrow, indeed, is not peculiar to Christians. Of it, all are partakers. But Christian endurance is part of a fellowship with Christ, in which we learn of Him. In the warm air of prosperity a hot mist rises round the soul, that hides from view the great realities, and that deceives and misleads us with its vain mirage. But in suffering, taken in Christs way and in fellowship with Him, in the pain of disappointment and of loss, and especially in the exercise of submission, we are taught feelingly where our true treasure is; and we are trained to consent to separations and privations, for the sake of Christ, and under the influence of the love of Christ.

And, lastly, the growth of Christian experience and Christian character deepens our impressions of the worth of Christs salvation, and gives more body and more ardour to Christian hope. As that world with its perfect good draws the believer, as it becomes more visible to faith and more attractive, his grasp of this world becomes, perhaps, not less kindly, but it becomes less tenacious. Knowledge, such as the schools of earth afford, we still feel to be desirable and good. Love, under the conditions which earth supplies for its exercise, we still feel to be very dear. The activities which call out courage and resource, we still feel to be interesting and worthy. Yet knowledge proves to be but in part. And love, if it does not die, needs for its health and security a purer air. And in the problems of active life failure still mingles with success. But the love of God which is in Jesus Christ grows in worth and power; so that, in new applications of the principle, we learn afresh to "count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ."

In a word, then, that we may grow into the mind of Christ, sufferings and self-denials are appointed to come into experience. He sets them for us; we should not unwisely set them for ourselves. They come in the conflict with sin or in the ordinary discipline of life. Either way they become for believers the fellowship of Christs sufferings; for they are taken in Christs way, under His eye, endured in the strength of His truth and grace and salvation. So believers become more conformable to His death. Hence this discipline of trial is indispensable to all disciples.

Some such view of the ends of Christ in regard to separation from sin and disengagement from the life which is doomed to die, we suppose to have been before Pauls mind. He had come to Christ for life, abundant and victorious, such as should be answerable to the power of Christs resurrection. But he saw that such life must fulfil itself in a certain dying, made good in a fellowship of Christs sufferings; and it must find its completeness and its peace beyond death, in the resurrection of the dead. Did he flinch or shrink from this? No: He longed to have it all perfectly accomplished. His knowledge of Christ was to be not only in the power of His resurrection, but in the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death.

Whatever mistakes have been made by followers of the ascetic life, it is a mistake on the other side to neglect this element of Christianity. He who is not self-denied, and that cheerfully, to the danger and seduction of lawful things, is one who has not his loins girt nor his lamp burning.

It is worth our while to mark the thoroughgoing sincerity of the Apostles Christianity. Not merely did he in general embrace Christ and salvation: but with the utmost cordiality he embraced the method of Christ; he strove after fellowship, with Christs mind in living, and also in dying; he did so, though the fellowship included not only the power of His resurrection, but the fellowship of His sufferings. He longed to have it all fulfilled in his own case. So he strove toward the resurrection of the dead.

In parting from these great Christian thoughts we may note how fitly the power of Christs resurrection takes precedence of the fellowship of His sufferings and the being made conformable to His death. Some have thought that, as death comes before resurrection, the order of the clauses might have been inverted. But it is only through the precedent virtue of Christs resurrection that such a history is achieved, either in Paul or in any of us. We must be partakers of life in the power of Christs resurrection, if we are to carry through the fellowship with the suffering and the death.

William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.

3:10 to know Christ: In knowing him, a person knows and is accepted by God (cp. 3:7-8; John 1:12-13; 17:3). • Believers experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead, both now and in eternity (see Rom 6:4-14; 8:10-11; Col 3:1-4). • to suffer with him, sharing in his death: Joined to Christ, a believer has the privilege of experiencing his life and death (see Phil 1:29; 2 Cor 4:10-12; Col 1:24; 1 Pet 4:13-16).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Php 3:10. Τοῦ γνῶναι, that I may know) The genitive, τοῦ, is connected with πίστει, faith; and resumes the mention of τῆς γνώσεως, knowledge, made at Php 3:8, and now to be more fully explained.—αὐτὸν) Him.—δύναμιν, the power) Rom 1:4.—τῆς ἀναστάσεως αὐτοῦ) It is consonant to the order of the discourse that the verbal noun ἀνάστασις should be taken, not for the resurrection from the dead, which is expressed in Php 3:11 with a change of the word [ἐξανάστασιν], but of the rising of Christ, Heb 7:14 [The Lord sprang out of Juda], as the verb ἀναστῆσαι is used in Act 13:32, where see the note [ἀνάστησας Ἰησοῦν—“quum suscitavit et nobis prœsentem exhibuit;” adding that this absolute ‘suscitatio’ is distinct from the “suscitatio e mortuis”]. For ἀνάστασις is not always put for the resurrection of the dead, Luk 2:34 [ἀνάστασιν πολλῶν ἐν τῷ Ἰσραὴλ, the spiritual rising again, etc., not their actual resurrection], (Luk 7:16); Lam 3:63; Zep 3:8; and truly the very rising or coming of the Messiah has its own power, on the knowledge of which believers depend, 2Pe 1:16.—τὴν κοινωνίαν, the fellowship) Gal 2:20.—συμμορφούμενος, being conformed [“made conformable”]) The nominative case after the infinitive is frequent with the Greeks, although here it may be construed with the following finite verb [καταντήσω]. Believers are conformed by faith. Imitation is not excluded, but most assuredly follows after [conformation by faith], Gal 3:1, note; comp. σύμμορφον, conformed, fashioned like, Php 3:21.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Php_3:10. Telic definition of the relation expressed by μὴ ἔχων κ.τ.λ. in Php_3:9. Paul has not the righteousness of the law, but the righteousness of faith, in order to know, etc. This knowledge would fail him if, on the contrary, instead of the righteousness of faith, he had that of the law. So he reverts to a more detailed illustration of τὸ ὑπερέχον τῆς γνώσεως Χ., Php_3:8, expressing, in the first place, again generally the great personal contents of the knowledge accruing from the righteousness of faith (τοῦ γνῶναι αὐτόν), and next, more particularly, the most importantespecially to the apostle in his position infinitely importantmatters which were its objects (τὴν δύναμιν κ.τ.λ.), developing them from his own richest experience, which had thus brought home to his deepest consciousness the ὑπερέχον τῆς γνώσεως Χ. The τοῦ γνῶναι might also be conceived as dependent on εὑρεθῶ ἐν αὐτῷ (Wiesinger, Schneckenburger, Schenkel); but the more precise definition of this εὑρεθῶ ἐν αὐτῷ by μὴ ἔχων κ.τ.λ. is so important, earnest, and solemn, that it most naturally carries with it also the statement of aim which follows. Chrysostom joins ἐπὶ τῇ πίστει to Php_3:10 : τί δέ ἐστὶν ἐπὶ τῇ πίστει τοῦ γνῶναι αὐτόν; ἄρα διὰ πίστεως ἡ γνῶσις, καὶ πίστεως ἄνευ γνῶναι αὐτὸν οὐκ ἔστι. So also Theodoret and Erasmus, and recently Hofmann (comp. also his Schriftbew. I. p. 618), who, in doing so, takes ἐπί in and by itself correctly as on the ground of faith. But such cases of emphatic prefixing, while they are certainly found with ἵνα (see on Gal_2:10; Eph_3:18), are not found before the genitive of the infinitive with the article, which represents the expression with ἵνα, but in such infinitive clauses only between article and infinitive; hence Paul would have written τοῦ ἐπὶ τῇ πίστει γνῶναι. Comp. Rom_8:12; 1Co_16:4. Hofmann improperly appeals, not any longer indeed to Rev_12:7, but, doing violence to the position of the words in the LXX., to 2Sa_6:2; Isa_10:32. According to Castalio, Calvin, Grotius, Bengel, and others, the genitive τοῦ γν. is meant to depend on τῇ πίστει; describit vim et naturam fidei, quod scilicet sit Christi cognitio (Calvin). But πίστις is never joined with the genitive of the infinitive with the article; and, besides, not the nature, but the object of the faith (Php_3:9) would be denoted by the genitive (Col_2:12; 2Th_2:13, et al.). Nor is τοῦ γνῶναι αὐτόν to be regarded as parallel with ἵνα Χ. κερδήσω κ. εὑρ. ἐν αὐτῷ (Estius, Storr, Heinrichs, and others, including Rheinwald, Hoelemann, Rilliet, de Wette, Winer), since it is in itself arbitrary to despise the appropriate dependence on what immediately precedes, and to go back instead to ἡγοῦμαι σκύβαλα εἶναι; and since in ἵνα Χριστὸν κερδ. κ. εὑρεθῶ ἐν αὐτῷ two elements are given, a subjective and an objective one, so that thus there would be presented no parallel corresponding with the subjective τοῦ γνῶναι κ.τ.λ. Moreover, Paul is in the habit of introducing two parallel clauses of design with a double ἵνα (Rom_7:13; Gal_3:14; 2Co_9:3).

The γνῶναι, which both conditions the faith and also in fuller development follows it (see on Php_3:8), is not the discursive, or generally theoretical and speculative knowing, but the inwardly salutary, experimental becoming-acquainted-with (qui expertus non fuerit, non intelliget, Anselm), as is plain from τὴν δύναμιν κ.τ.λ. Comp. 1Co_2:8; 1Co_8:2; Gal_4:9, et al.; frequently so used in John. See also Weiss, bibl. Theol. p. 421, ed. 2.

καὶ τὴν δύναμιν τῆς ἀναστ. αὐτοῦ καὶ τ. κοινων. τ. παθ. αὐτ.] and (that is, and especially) the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings. The δύναμ. τ. ἀναστ. αὐτ. is not the power by which He has been raised (Vatablus, Grotius; comp. Matthies), which would be quite unsuitable to the context, but the power which the resurrection of Christ has, its vis el efficacia in respect to believers. The special point that Paul has in view, is supplied by the context through what is said immediately before of the righteousness of faith, to which τοῦ γνῶναι κ.τ.λ. refers. He means the powerful guarantee of justification and salvation which the resurrection of Christ affords to believers; see Rom_4:25; Rom_5:10; 1Co_15:17; Act_13:37-38. This power of the resurrection is experienced, not by him that is righteous through the law, but by him that is righteous through faith, to whom the resurrection of the Lord brings the constant energetic certainty of his reconciliation procured by Jesus death and the completion of eternal life (Rom_8:11; 1Co_6:14; Col_3:1 ff.; Php_3:21). Comp. also Rom_8:34, where this δύναμις τῆς ἀναστ. is triumphant in the apostle. As a matter of course, this power, in virtue of which the resurrection of Christ, according to 1Co_15:17, Rom_4:25, might be described as complementum redemtionis (Calvin), is already in regeneration experimentally known, as is Christ generally (αὐτόν); but Paul speaks from the consciousness that every element of the regenerate life, which has τὴν ἐκ Θεοῦ δικαιοσύνην ἐπὶ τῇ πίστει, is an ever new perception of this power. The view which understands it of the moral power of awakening (Beza and others, also van Hengel; comp. Rilliet), according to Rom_6:4, Col_2:12, or the living power of victory, which lies for the believer in the resurrection of Christ, according to 2Co_4:10, Gal_2:20, Php_4:13,by means of which the Christian, through his glorified Lord, himself also possesses an infinite new power of acquiring victory over the world and death (Ewald, comp. de Wette, Schneckenburger, Wiesinger, Schenkel; substantially also Hofmann),does not accord either with the words themselves (for so understood it would be the power of the risen Christ, not the power of His resurrection), or with the following κ. τὴν κοινωνίαν τῶν παθημ. αὐτοῦ, which, in a logical point of view (comp. 2Co_4:10-12), must either have gone before, or have been expressed by ἐν τῇ κοινωνίᾳ κ.τ.λ. The certainty of our own resurrection and glory (Estius, Cornelius a Lapide, Storr, Heinrichs, Hoelemann, and others; comp. Pelagius, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret, and Theophylact) is necessarily included also in the δύναμις, without, however, being exclusively meant. By the series sermonis Bengel (comp. Samuel Crell) has allowed himself to be misled into explaining ἀνάστασις, not of the resurrection at all, but of the exortus or adventus of the Messiah. References of various kinds are mixed up by Rheinwald, Flatt, Schinz, Usteri, and others.

καὶ τὴν κοινων. τῶν παθημ. αὐτοῦ] In these words Paul intends to expressand he does so by the repetition of the article with a certain solemnitya second, highly valuable relation, conditioned by the first, to the experimental knowledge of which the possession of the righteousness of faith was destined to lead him, namely, the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ, in which he sees a high proof of divine grace and distinction (Php_1:29, Php_2:17 f.). Comp. Col_1:24. Suffering for the sake of Christs cause is a participation in Christs sufferings (a συμπάσχειν, Rom_8:17), because, as respects the characteristic kind and way of suffering, one suffers the same that Christ suffered (according to the ethical category, drinks of the same cup which Christ drank, Mat_20:22). Comp. 1Pe_4:13, and see on 2Co_1:5, Col_1:24; also on τὴν νέκρωσιν τοῦ Ἰησοῦ, 2Co_4:10. The explanation which makes it: suffering with such a disposition of mind as He suffered (as stedfastly, etc.), given by Flatt and others, is imported from a rationalistic point of view; and the view which takes it in the sense of: the believing appropriation of the merit of Christ (Calovius, Rheinwald, and others), is opposed to the words, and at variance with the habitual conception of a real συμπάσχειν with Christ, under which the sufferings of Christian martyrs were regarded. Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, have already in substance the correct view. Observe, moreover, that Paul has not written τὴν δύναμιν τῆς κοινωνίας κ.τ.λ. (Hoelemann: vim ac pondus; de Wette: all that this fellowship involves; comp. Corn, a Lapide: dulcedinem ac sanctitatem); the γνῶναι, on the contrary, relates to the matter itself, to the knowledge of which only those righteous by faith can attain, whilst to those righteous by the law it remains an unknown element; the subjectivity for it is wanting to the latter, though the objective suffering is present. It was otherwise with the previous element; for the resurrection of Christ in itselfthe fact as suchis known also by him who is righteous through the law, but not so its δύναμις, of which only the righteous through faith is aware. The knowledge of this δύναμις, in virtue of which he experiences in the resurrection of Christ the abiding divinely effectual guarantee of his justification and eternal life, makes him capable also of recognising in his sufferings for the sake of the gospel a fellowship in the sufferings of Christ; the latter knowledge is conditioned by the former; he would not have it without the former, because he would be driven to look upon his faith as vain and idle, and upon himself, so far as he suffers, as ἐλεεινότερον πάντων ἀνθρώπων (1Co_15:14; 1Co_15:17; 1Co_15:19). The enthusiastic feeling of drinking the cup of Christ is not possible, unless a man bears in his heart the mighty assurance of salvation through the resurrection of the Lord.

συμμορφιζόμενος τῷ θανάτῳ αὐτοῦ] denotes the corresponding situation (comp. 2Co_4:10), in which Paul was conscious that he should know, as one righteous by faith, the κοινωνίαν τῶν παθ. Χριστοῦ: inasmuch as I am made like to His death; for his position then was such that he saw himself threatened with martyrdom, consequently (comp. Php_2:17) his state of suffering developed itself into similarity to the death of Christ. This present state of development of the being made like to Christ is indicated by the present participle. The interpretation, which takes it of the fellowship in suffering generally, which is here more precisely described (Calvin, Estius, and others; also Wiesinger and Weiss), does not satisfy the progression from the general παθημάτων to the definite θανάτῳ. And the sense: non detrectando mortem ejus morti similem (Vatablus; comp. Matthies and de Wette) is imported into the words, which by Grotius, van Hengel, Rilliet, Schneckenburger, and others, are interpreted quite in opposition to the context, as referring to the ethical dying to the world, its lusts, etc. (Romans 6; Gal_2:19). The nominative συμμορφ., which is to be explained as dependent, not in a clumsily complicated fashion on εὑρεθῶ (Grotius, Hoelemann, Hofmann, and others), but on τοῦ γνῶναι κ.τ.λ., refers to its logical subject. See Eph_4:2.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Phi 3:10-11 . CONFORMITY TO CHRIST’S DEATH AND RESURRECTION.

Phi 3:10 . τοῦ γνῶναι . This infinitive of purpose or motive is frequent in N.T. and later Greek. Among classical authors it is chiefly found in Thucyd., who favours it (see Goodwin, MT [50] . , p. 319; Viteau, Le Verbe , p. 169 ff.). It is perhaps connected with the use of the genitive after verbs of aiming, hitting, etc. Paul has already spoken in Phi 3:8 of the γνῶσις of Christ. This thought again appeals to him, but now as being the natural development of winning Christ and being found in Him. For with Paul this Christian Gnosis is the highest reach of Christian experience. Cf. Wordsworth, Excursion , Bk. iv.:

[50] . Moods and Tenses (Burton, Goodwin).

For knowledge is delight, and such delight

Breeds love: yet suited as it rather is

To thought and to the climbing intellect,

It teaches less to love than to adore;

If that be not indeed the highest love.

γνῶσις is the necessary result of intimate communion with Christ. No better comment on the thought can be found than Eph 1:11-20 . Cf. , as a most instructive parallel, Joh 17:3 . The precise force of γνῶναι as opposed to εἰδέναι κ . τ . λ . is admirably brought out by Lft [51] . on Gal 4:9 , where he shows that γν . (1) has in view “an earlier state of ignorance” or “some prior facts on which the knowledge is based,” and (2) contains “the ideas of thoroughness, familiarity, or of approbation”. γν . emphasises “the process of redemption”. τὴν δύναμιν τ . ἀνας .… κοινωνίαν παθημ .… συμμορφ .… τῷ θανάτῳ . As to readings, τήν must be omitted (with the best authorities) before κοιν ., because the latter forms one idea with the preceding clause. In the case of τῶν it is more difficult to decide. But the evidence, both external and internal, is, on the whole, against it. συμμορφιζόμενος is clearly right, having unassailable attestation. In this passage we have the deepest secrets of the Apostle’s Christian experience unveiled. Qui expertus non fuerit, non intelliget (Anselm). Two experiences are described which cannot be separated: the experimental knowledge of the believer embraces (1) the power of Christ’s resurrection, (2) the fellowship of His sufferings, conformity to His death. Paul puts the resurrection first, because it was the Risen Christ he came to know; it was that knowledge which gave him insight into the real meaning of Christ’s sufferings and death. But here he thinks altogether of a spiritual process which is carried on in the soul of him who is united to Christ. He has no idea of martyrdom before him (so, e.g. , De W., Myr [52] . ). Nor is any earthly suffering present to his mind except, perhaps, as a discipline which overcomes sin. Thus Col 1:24 is not a true parallel (so also Hpt [53] . ). The passages which illuminate his meaning are especially Rom 6:3-12 ; Rom 8:29 , Gal 2:19-20 ; Gal 6:14 . Christ, in Paul’s view, carries the man who clings to Him in faith through all the great crises which came to Him on the path of His perfecting. The deepest of men’s saving experiences run parallel, as it were, to the cardinal events of the Christian revelation, more especially to that atoning death accomplished once for all for the remission of sins. Cf. Rom 6:5 , σύμφυτοι γεγόναμεν τῷ ὁμοιώματι τοῦ θανάτου αὐτοῦ . This is the “crucifying of the flesh” in fellowship with Christ, which results in “newness of life” (Rom 6:4 ). On the Cross Christ died, i.e. , the earthly part in Him died His human flesh. But that was the only element in Him that could be tempted. And, as regards that element of His being, He died victorious, able to offer up His human life without spot unto God. They that are Christ’s are enabled, by His power communicated to them, through a process of overcoming, to die to earthliness and the appeals made to their fleshly nature. But in dying on the Cross Christ identified Himself with the sin of the world, acknowledging that God’s judgment upon sin was righteous and true, as the Head of mankind representing sinners and bearing the burden of their transgression. So, in the Apostle’s view, they that are Christ’s have the firm assurance that in Him the Crucified they have made full confession of their sin to the holy and gracious God. They know, by the witness of the Holy Spirit, that God accepts that confession and forgives them freely and joyfully. For they know that Holiness has accepted Love, and that Love has acknowledged Holiness, or rather, that the holy love of the Father and the Son is revealed in its unity on the Cross of Christ. The result of death with Christ is life in Him. This new life depends on Christ’s resurrection. “Because I live, ye shall live also.” The power ( δύναμιν ) of His resurrection as experienced by the believer is the effect of His victory over death and sin; that victory which has given Him all power in heaven and earth; which enables Him to impart of His own life to those who are in His fellowship. It is not they who live but “Christ liveth in” them. The organic connexion between Christ and the Christian is the regulating idea for the Apostle. Christ is, as we have said, the Head and representative of humanity. Hence conformity to Christ (Rom 8:29 , προώρισεν συμμόρφους τῆς εἰκόνος τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ ) all along the line, both in living and dying, is a return to the divinely-purposed type, for man was made in the image of God (see loc. cit. , εἰς τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸν πρωτότοκον ἐν πολλοῖς ἀδελφοῖς ). “In this appropriation of the death and rising of the Lord Jesus … there are three stages, corresponding to the Friday, Saturday and Sunday of Eastertide. Christ died for our sins: He was buried: He rose again the third day. So, by consequence, ‘I am crucified with Christ: no longer do I live: Christ liveth in me’ ” (Findlay, Galat. in Expos. Bible ; p. 159). On the whole thought of this passage, see Pfleiderer, Paulinism , i., pp. 169, 192 207; Denney, Expos. , vi., 4, p. 299 ff.

[51] Lightfoot.

[52] Meyer.

[53] Haupt.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

10. παθημάτων. So א*B. אcD2G2K2L, all cursives, prefix τῶν. This seems preferable, though Tisch Treg omit.

συνμορφιζόμενος. א*and cD2* συνμ-. ABP, 17, Orig. Bas. συμμ-. אcD2cK2L, the mass of cursives, Chrys Theodoret read συμμορφούμενος. Recent editors all prefer συμμορφιζόμενος, as the less usual form, and so less likely to be an emendation. Another reading is found in G, συνφορτειζόμενος, rendered cooneratus in the Latin of the MS.: “bearing with Him the burthen of His death.” But this, though there is other Latin evidence for it, is not to be considered.

10. τοῦ γνῶναι αὐτὸν. “In order to know Him.” This construction is very common in the LXX. In the N.T. it is used especially by St Luke and St Paul; cp. Luk 24:29, εἰσῆλθε τοῦ μεῖναι σὺν αὐτοῖς: 1Co 10:13, ποιήσει … ἔκβασιν, τοῦ δύνασθαι ὑμᾶς ὑπενεγκεῖν. It is not peculiar to Hellenistic Greek; it appears in classical prose, particularly after Demosthenes’ time (Winer, Grammar, iii. § xliv.).—Note the sequence of thought: he embraces the Divine “righteousness,” and renounces his own, in order to the end here stated—the true knowledge of Christ, communion with Him, and so assimilation to Him. Accepting Christ as his one ground of peace with God (Rom 5:1), he now gets such a view of himself and his Redeemer as to affect profoundly his whole conscious relations with Him, and the effect of those relations on his being. Thus Php 3:10 is no mere echo of Php 3:9; it gives another range of truth, which yet is in the deepest connexion with the previous thought. To use a convenient classification, Php 3:9 deals with Justification, Php 3:10 with Sanctification in relation to it.

Τοῦ γνῶναι. The aorist suggests a crisis of knowledge. From such a crisis a process of growing knowledge is sure to issue; for the Object of the γνῶναι “passeth knowledge” (Eph 3:19). But it is the crisis which is in immediate view here.

τὴν δύναμιν τῆς ἀναστάσεως αὐτοῦ. His Resurrection has manifold “power.” It evidences justification (e.g. Rom 4:24-25, and esp. 1Co 15:14; 1Co 15:17-18). It assures the Christian of his own future resurrection (1Co 15:20; 1Th 4:14). Yet more, it is that by which (completed in the Ascension) the Lord became actually the Giver of the Spirit which unites us to our Head. See Joh 7:39, οὔπω ἦν πνεῦμα ἅγιον, ὅτι Ἰησοῦς οὔπω ἐδοξάσθη: cp. Act 2:33. This aspect of truth is prominent in the Epistles to Ephesus and Colosasæ, nearly contemporary with this Epistle; we have here a passing hint of what is developed there.

The thought of the Lord’s Resurrection is probably suggested by the implied reference just above to the atoning Death on which it followed. The whole passage indicates that while our acceptance rests always on the propitiatory work of Christ for us, our power for holy service and suffering lies in our union with Him as the Risen One, to whom we are joined by the Spirit.

Cp. Rom 5:10, καταλλαγέντες [διὰ τοῦ θανάτου τοῦ Χριστοῦ] σωθησόμεθα ἐν τῇ ζωῇ αὐτοῦ: and 2Co 4:10; Col 3:1-4; Heb 13:20-21.

κοινωνίαν (τῶν) παθημάτων αὐτοῦ. A share in His experience as the Sufferer. The Lord who has redeemed us has done it, as a fact, at an awful cost of pain, physical and spiritual; so a moral necessity calls His redeemed ones, united as they are to Him, to “carry the cross” after Him, in His Spirit’s strength, and for His sake. And this will prove a deep secret of fuller spiritual sympathy and fellowship with Him. Cp. 2Co 1:5, καθὼς περισσεύει τὰ παθήματα τοῦ Χριστοῦ εἰς ἡμᾶς, οὔτως διὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ περισσεύει ἡ παράκλησις ἡμῶν: 2Co 12:10, εὐδοκῶ ἐν ἀσθενείαις κτλ. ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ· ὅταν γὰρ ἀσθενῶ τότε δυνατός εἰμι.

συνμορφιζόμενος. On the reading, see critical note.—Configuratus, Vulg. But the Latin, with its lack of a present pass. part., misses the point of the Greek—a process of conformation; R.V., “becoming conformed.”

The immediate thought is that of spiritual harmony with the suffering Lord’s state of will. His Death, as the supreme expression of His holy love and surrender, draws the Apostle as with a spiritual magnet to seek assimilation of character to Him who died. The Atoning Work is not forgotten; for the full glory of Christ’s Death as Model is never wholly seen apart from a view of its propitiatory purpose; but that purpose is not the first thought here.—Cp. 2Co 4:10, πάντοτε τήν νέκρωσιν τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ἐν τῷ σώματι περιφέροντες, ἵνα καὶ ἡ ζωὴ τοῦ Ἰ. ἐν τῷ σώματι ἡμῶν φανερωθῇ.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

10. τοῦ γνῶναι αὐτὸν: ‘that I may come to know him.’ Taken up from the γνώσεως of vs. 8, and explaining it. Τοῦ γνῶναι is the infinitive of design, setting forth the end contemplated in the righteousness of faith. For this usage see Mat 24:45; Luk 2:24, Luk 2:27; Act 26:18; 1Co 10:13; Gal 3:10; and Burt. 397; Win. xliv. 4 b.

Lips. and Kl. coördinate τοῦ γν. with ἵνα εὑρεθῶ, as representing, not the purpose of being found in Christ, nor the object for which Paul possesses the righteousness of faith, but the mode in which he desires to be found in Christ. But the dependence on what immediately precedes is most natural. In τὸν Χτὸν κερδ. and εὑρεθῶ two elements are given which do not furnish a parallel to τοῦ γνῶναι, and Paul’s habit is to join two parallel clauses of design with a double ἵνα. (See Rom 7:13; 2Co 9:3; Gal 3:14.) The difference, however, is not important. Calv., Grot., Beng., make τοῦ γν. dependent on τῇ πίστ., describing the power and the nature of faith. But this construction with πίστ. has no parallel in N.T. The change of construction from ἵνα in vs. 9 to the infin. of design is not uncommon in Paul. (See Rom 6:6; Col 1:9, Col 1:10.)

For γνῶναι, see on 1:19. Paul’s end is, indeed, εἰδέναι, the absolute knowledge; but he is here speaking rather of his coming into a knowledge of the riches of Christ in the process of his experience. See Lightf. on Gal 4:9; and comp. Joh 7:27; 1Co 2:11; Gal 4:8, Gal 4:9; Eph 5:5; 1Jn 2:18, 1Jn 2:29, 1Jn 2:3:1, 1Jn 2:16, 1Jn 2:4:16. It should also be noted that, in N.T. Greek, γινώσκειν often implies a personal relation between the knower and the known, involving the influence of the object of knowledge upon the knower. (See Joh 2:24, Joh 2:25; 1Co 2:8; 1Jn 4:8.) In Jn. the relation itself is expressed by the verb (Joh 17:3, Joh 17:25; 1Jn 2:3, 1Jn 2:4, 1Jn 2:5:20). Here, therefore, ‘that I may come to know,’ appropriating with the increase of knowledge.

The two following details are involved in personal knowledge of Christ:

καὶ τὴν δύναμιν τῆς ἀναστάσεως αὐτοῦ: ‘and the power of his resurrection.’ Καὶ is more than a simple connective. It introduces a definition and fuller explanation of αὐτὸν. Δύναμιν is not the power by which Christ was raised from the dead (Chr., Œc.), nor, as Theoph., “because to arise is great power”; nor Christ’s power to raise up believers. Like the preceding expressions, it describes a subjective experience. It is the power of the risen Christ as it becomes a subject of practical knowledge and a power in Paul’s inner life. It is thus within the same circle of thought as Rom 6:4-11. (Comp. Col 3:1 ff.) The resurrection is viewed, not only as something which Paul hopes to experience after death, nor as a historical experience of Christ which is a subject of grateful and inspiring remembrance, but as a present, continuously active force in his Christian development. The beginning of the life of faith is a moral resurrection, a rising with Christ (Rom 6:5; Col 3:1), inaugurating ‘newness of life’ (Rom 6:4),—life in the Spirit (Rom 7:6), a life essentially identical with the ζωὴ αἰώνιος and ἐπουράνιος of the glorified Jesus. Comp. Eph 1:19, Eph 1:20, Eph 1:2:5, Eph 1:6; and see the very suggestive remarks of Pfleiderer, Paulinismus, ch. v. “The rising with Christ is put, not as an object of hope, but as belonging to the present, from the moment when ‘the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead’ (Rom 8:11) takes up its abode in believers; so that the rising with Christ is so far a fact as that for them a new life is opened (2Co 5:15; Gal 2:19). Thus, equipped with the death-overcoming, spiritual life-power of Christ, they enter upon a condition in which they are enabled to overcome the power of sin in their members, so that sin shall not have dominion over them (Rom 6:13, Rom 6:14; Col 3:5).”—Klöpper. Thus the knowledge of the power of Christ’s resurrection appears as an element of the righteousness of faith. This explains Paul’s phrase ‘justification of life’ (Rom 5:18). This knowledge includes the assurance of immortality.

καὶ κοινωνίαν παθημάτων αὐτοῦ: ‘and the fellowship of his sufferings.’

DFGKLP την before κοιν.

Comp. 2Co 1:5, 2Co 1:4:10, 2Co 1:11; Gal 6:17; Col 1:24; 1Pe 4:13. A participation in the sufferings which Christ endured in his mortal life. (Comp. Heb 12:2, Heb 12:3.) Such participation is involved in the knowledge of Christ. It is not merely ethical. It does not refer, except by implication, to the victorious power of suffering. Nor is a mere likeness to the sufferings of Christ intended. Like the knowledge of the power of the resurrection, the fellowship of the sufferings is involved in the mystical union with Christ, and is treated by Paul as a verification of this “at its hardest and most decisive point” (Weiss). Being in Christ involves fellowship with Christ at all points,—his obedient life, his spirit, his sufferings, his death, and his glory. The order of arrangement here is the true one. The fellowship of the sufferings follows the experience of the power of the resurrection. For the power of the resurrection appears in justification of life; and the new life in and with Christ puts its subject where Christ was,—in that attitude towards the world which engenders contradiction, reproach, and persecution. As Mey. truthfully observes: “The enthusiastic feeling of drinking the cup of Christ is not possible unless a man bears in his heart the mighty assurance of resurrection through the Lord.” One who is not under the power of the resurrection will not share Christ’s sufferings, because his moral attitude will not be such as to call out the assaults of the world. (Comp. Joh 7:7.) How this desire was fulfilled in Paul appears in the Acts, and in allusions in his letters. (See 1Co 4:10-13, 1Co 4:15:31; 2Co 4:8-12; Gal 6:17.) Christ had said of him, ‘I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake’ (Act 9:16).

συμμορφιζόμενος τῷ θανάτῳ αὐτοῦ: ‘becoming conformed unto his death.’

אc Dc EKL συμμορφουμενος.

FG συνφορτειζομενος, ‘being burdened together.’

The conception of fellowship with Christ’s sufferings is further unfolded to its last point—even unto death. (Comp. 2:8.) Συμμορφίζεσθαι not elsewhere in Bib. The adj. σύμμορφος occurs 3:21; Rom 8:29. The participle is in apposition with the subject of τοῦ γνῶναι. (Comp. Eph 4:2; Col 1:10.) Not middle, ‘conforming myself to,’ but passive. The conformity is not ethical, as Rom 6:3-11, but is a conformity with the sufferings of Christ’s earthly life, even unto death. It does not necessarily indicate, as Mey., a distinct contemplation of Paul’s martyrdom. (Comp. 1:25, 26, 2:23, 24.) The thought is rather that of 1Co 15:31; 2Co 4:10. (Comp. Rom 8:17.) The suffering of this present time works together with all things for the good of those who love God (Rom 8:28); and such God ordained to be ‘conformed [συμμόρφους] to the image of his Son’ (Rom 8:29). The participle indicates the process of development.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The way to that eternal salvation is to follow Christ’s steps, by afflictions and persecutions, until we come to Christ himself, who is our mark whereat we shoot, and receive that reward whereunto God calleth us in him. And the Apostle setteth these true exercises of godliness against those vain ceremonies of the Law, wherein the false apostles put the sum of godliness.

That I may feel him indeed, and have a trial of him.

This is the end of righteousness by faith touching us, that by the virtue of his resurrection we may scape from death.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

That I may know him--experimentally. The aim of the "righteousness" just mentioned. This verse resumes, and more fully explains, "the excellency of the knowledge of Christ" (Phi 3:8). To know HIM is more than merely to know a doctrine about Him. Believers are brought not only to redemption, but to the Redeemer Himself.

the power of his resurrection--assuring believers of their justification (Rom 4:25; Co1 15:17), and raising them up spiritually with Him, by virtue of their identification with Him in this, as in all the acts of His redeeming work for us (Rom 6:4; Col 2:12; Col 3:1). The power of the Divine Spirit, which raised Him from literal death, is the same which raises believers from spiritual death now (Eph 1:19-20), and shall raise their bodies from literal death hereafter (Rom 8:11).

the fellowship of his sufferings--by identification with Him in His sufferings and death, by imputation; also, in actually bearing the cross whatever is laid on us, after His example, and so "filling up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ" (Col 1:24); and in the will to bear aught for His sake (Mat 10:38; Mat 16:24; Ti2 2:11). As He bore all our sufferings (Isa 53:4), so we participate in His.

made conformable unto his death--"conformed to the likeness of His death," namely, by continued sufferings for His sake, and mortifying of the carnal self (Rom 8:29; Co1 15:31; Co2 4:10-12; Gal 2:20).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 10. That I may know him] To be the true and promised Messiah, and experience all that salvation which he has bought by his blood.

The power of his resurrection] In having this body of my humiliation raised from death, and made like unto his glorious body. This seems to be the sole meaning of the apostle; for it is in virtue of Christ's resurrection that we are to be raised incorruptible and immortal.

And the fellowship of his sufferings] Christ died, not only as a victim for sin, but as a martyr to the truth. No creature can have fellowship with him in his vicarious sufferings; as a martyr to the truth, St. Paul wished to imitate him. Not only in the apostle, but in the primitive Christians generally, there seems to have been a strong desire after martyrdom.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

10 That I may know him He points out the efficacy and nature of faith — that it is the knowledge of Christ, and that, too, not bare or indistinct, but in such a manner that the power of his resurrection is felt. Resurrection he employs as meaning, the completion of redemption, so that it comprehends in it at the same time the idea of death. But as it is not enough to know Christ as crucified and raised up from the dead, unless you experience, also, the fruit of this, he speaks expressly of efficacy. Christ therefore is rightly known, when we feel how powerful his death and resurrection are, and how efficacious they are in us. Now all things are there furnished to us — expiation and destruction of sin, freedom from condemnation, satisfaction, victory over death, the attainment of righteousness, and the hope of a blessed immortality.

And the fellowship of his sufferings Having spoken of that freely-conferred righteousness, which was procured for us through the resurrection of Christ, and is obtained by us through faith, he proceeds to treat of the exercises of the pious, and that in order that it might not seem as though he introduced an inactive faith, which produces no effects in the life. He also intimates, indirectly, that these are the exercises in which the Lord would have his people employ themselves; while the false Apostles pressed forward upon them the useless elements of ceremonies. Let every one, therefore, who has become through faith a partaker of all Christ’s benefits, acknowledge that a condition is presented to him — that his whole life be conformed to his death.

There is, however, a twofold participation and fellowship in the death of Christ. The one is inward — what the Scripture is wont to term the mortification of the flesh, or the crucifixion of the old man, of which Paul treats in the sixth chapter of the Romans; the other is outward — what is termed the mortification of the outward man. It is the endurance of the Cross, of which he treats in the eighth chapter of the same Epistle, and here also, if I do not mistake. For after introducing along with this the power of his resurrection, Christ crucified is set before us, that we may follow him through tribulations and distresses; and hence the resurrection of the dead is expressly made mention of, that we may know that we must die before we live. This is a continued subject of meditation to believers so long as they sojourn in this world.

This, however, is a choice consolation, that in all our miseries we are partakers of Christ’s Cross, if we are his members; so that through afflictions the way is opened up for us to everlasting blessedness, as we read elsewhere,

If we die with him, we shall also live with him; if we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him. (2 Timothy 2:11,)

We must all therefore be prepared for this — that our whole life shall represent nothing else than the image of death, until it produce death itself, as the life of Christ is nothing else than a prelude of death. We enjoy, however, in the mean time, this consolation — that the end is everlasting blessedness. For the death of Christ is connected with the resurrection. Hence Paul says, that he is conformed to his death, that he may attain the glory of the resurrection. The phrase, if by any means, does not indicate doubt, but expresses difficulty, with a view to stimulate our earnest endeavor for it is no light contest, inasmuch as we must struggle against so many and so serious hinderances.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(10) Inseparably connected with the possession of this “righteousness of God” is the knowledge of Christ, or more exactly, the gaining the knowledge of Christ (see Php_3:8), by conformity both to His suffering and death, and also to His resurrection. This “conformity to the image of Christ” (Rom_8:29-30)—with which compare the having “Christ formed within us” of Gal_4:19)—is made by St. Paul the substance of the gracious predestination of God, preceding the call, the justification, the glorification, which mark the various epochs of Christian life.

(10, 11) The order of these verses is notable and instructive. (1) First comes the knowledge of “the power of the Resurrection.” What this is we see by examining it as historically the main subject of the first apostolic preaching. There it is considered, as in St. Peter’s first sermons, as giving the earnest of “forgiveness,” or “blotting out of sins,” and the “gift of the Holy Ghost” (Act_2:38; Act_3:13; Act_3:26), or, as St. Paul expresses it, of “justification from all things” (Act_13:38-39). This same idea is wrought out fully in his Epistles. Thus, for example, without it (1Co_15:17) “we are still in our sins.” It is the pledge of our justification (Rom_5:1), and the means of our being “alive unto God” (Rom_6:11). Hence “the power,” or efficacy, “of His resurrection” is the justification, and regeneration inseparable from it, which lie at the entrance of Christian life. (2) Next comes the “partaking of His sufferings” and “conformity to His death,” which are the “taking up the cross, and following Him,” in the obedience even unto death. This “fellowship of sufferings,” coming partly from the sin of others, partly from our own, is the constant theme of the New Testament. (See 1Pe_4:13; Rom_8:17; 2Co_1:5; Col_1:24; 2Ti_2:11.) The “conformity to His death” is the completion of the death unto sin, described as “mortification” of sin (Col_3:5); “as bearing about in the body the dying (or, properly, mortification) of the Lord Jesus” (2Co_4:10); or more frequently as being “crucified with Christ,” “the world to us and we to the world” (Gal_2:20; Gal_5:24; Gal_6:14). (3) Lastly comes the “attainment to the resurrection of the dead,” properly, “the resurrection from the dead,” which is (see Luk_20:35) the resurrection unto life and the glorification in Him, so nobly described below (Php_3:20-21). “If we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection” (Rom_6:5). For of our resurrection (see 1Co_15:12-23) His resurrection is not only the pledge, but the earnest. Note how in 1Th_4:14-18, and 1Co_15:51-57, the whole description is only of the resurrection unto life, and compare the first resurrection of Rev_20:6. This is the completion of all; St. Paul dared not as yet anticipate it with the confidence which hereafter soothed his dying hour (2Ti_4:7-8).

Php_3:12-16 lead us from the warning against trust in human merit to deprecate the supposition of a perfection here attained even in Christ. The transition is natural. The same spirit which shows itself undisguisedly in the one pretension, comes out half-concealed in the other.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

That I may know him,.... The Ethiopic version reads "by faith"; and to the same sense the Syriac. The apostle did know Christ, and that years ago; he knew whom he had believed; he knew him for himself; he knew his personal interest in him; nor did he know any but him in the business of salvation: but his knowledge of Christ, though it was very great, it was, imperfect; he knew but in part, and therefore desired to know more of Christ, of the mystery and glories of his person, of the unsearchable riches of his grace, of his great salvation, and the benefits of it, of his love, which passes perfect knowledge, and to have a renewed and enlarged experience of communion with him. The apostle here explains what he means by winning Christ, for the sake of which he suffered the loss of all things, and counted them but dung; it was, that he might attain to a greater knowledge of the person and grace of Christ:

and the power of his resurrection; not that power which was put forth by his Father, and by himself, in raising him from the dead; but the virtue which arises from it, and the influence it has on many things; as on the resurrection of the saints: it is the procuring cause of it, they shall rise by virtue of union to a risen Jesus; it is the firstfruits, which is the earnest and pledge of their resurrection, as sure as Christ is risen, so sure shall they rise; it is the exemplar and pattern of theirs, their bodies will be raised and fashioned like to the glorious body of Christ; and this the apostle desired to know, experience, and attain unto. Christ's resurrection has an influence also on the justification of his people; when Christ died he had the sins of them all upon him, and he died for them, and discharged as their public head and representative, and they in him: hence it is said of him, that "he was raised again for our justification", Rom 4:25. Now, though the apostle was acquainted with this virtue and influence of Christ's resurrection, he desired to know more of it, for the encouragement of his faith to live upon Christ, as the Lord his righteousness. Moreover, the regeneration of men is owing to the resurrection of Christ; as to the abundant mercy of God, as the moving cause, so to the resurrection of Christ, as the means or virtual cause; and therefore are said to be "begotten again by the resurrection of Christ from the dead", Pe1 1:3. This power and virtue the apostle had had an experience of, yet he wanted to feel more of it, in exciting the graces of the spirit to a lively exercise, in raising his affections, and setting them on things above, and in engaging him to seek after them, and set light by things on earth, and in causing him to walk in newness of life, in likeness or imitation of Christ's resurrection, to all which that strongly animates and encourages; see Col 3:1.

And the fellowship of his sufferings; either his personal sufferings, and so signifies a sharing in, and a participation of the benefits arising from them; such as reconciliation for sin, peace with God, pardon, righteousness, nearness to God, &c. or the sufferings of his members for him, and with him, and which Christ reckons his own: these the apostle was willing to take his part in, and lot of, knowing, that those that are partakers of his sufferings in this sense, shall reign with him, and be glorified together. What the Jews deprecated, the apostle was desirous of; namely, sharing in the sorrows and sufferings of the Messiah, and which they reckon the greatest happiness to be delivered from,

"The disciples of R. Eleazar (y) asked him, what a man should do that he may be delivered , "from the sorrows of the Messiah?" he must study in the law, and in beneficence.

And elsewhere they say (z),

"he that keeps the three meals on the sabbath day shall be delivered from three punishments, , "from the sorrows of the Messiah", and from the damnation of hell, and from the war of Gog and Magog.

But our apostle rejoiced in his sufferings for Christ, and was desirous of filling up the afflictions of Christ in his flesh, for his body's sake, the church:

being made conformable unto his death; either in a spiritual sense dying daily unto sin, Co1 15:31, having the affections, with the lusts, crucified, Gal 5:24, and the deeds of the body mortified, Rom 8:13, and so planted in the likeness of his death, Rom 6:5; or rather in a corporeal sense, bearing always in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, Co2 4:10, and being continually exposed to death for his sake, and ready to suffer it whenever called to it,

(y) T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 98. 2. (z) T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 118. 1. See Cetubot, fol. 111. 1.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;

Ver. 10. And may know him] Not notionally only (for so a man may do out of every catechism), but practically; not apprehensively only, but affectively; not with that knowledge that is cognoscitiva, only standing in speculation, but that is directiva vitae, as the apostle here expounds himself. A natural man may have a disciplinary knowledge of Christ, that is, by hearsay, as a blind man hath of colour, not an intuitive, i.e. per speciem propriam, &c.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

That I may know him - That I may be fully acquainted with his nature, his character, his work, and with the salvation which he has worked out. It is one of the highest objects of desire in the mind of the Christian to know Christ; see the notes at Eph 3:19.

And the power of his resurrection - That is, that I may understand and experience the proper influence which the fact of his resurrection should have on the mind. That influence would he felt in imparting the hope of immortality; in sustaining the soul in the prospect of death, by the expectation of being raised from the grave in like manner; and in raising the mind above the world; Rom 6:11. There is no one truth that will have greater power over us, when properly believed, than the truth that Christ has risen from the dead. His resurrection confirms the truth of the Christian religion (notes, 1 Cor. 15); makes it certain that there is a future state, and that the dead will also rise; dispels the darkness that was around the grave, and shows us that our great interests are in the future world. The fact that Christ has risen from the dead, when fully believed, will produce a sure hope that we also shall be raised, and will animate us to bear trials for his sake, with the assurance that we shall be raised up as he was. One of the things which a Christian ought most earnestly to desire is, to feel the power of this truth on his soul - that his great Redeemer has burst the bands of death; has brought life and immortality to light, and has given us the pledge that our bodies shall rise. What trials may we not bear with this assurance? What is to be dreaded in death, if this is so? What glories rise to the view when we think of the resurrection! And what trifles are all the things which people seek here, when compared with the glory that shall be ours when we shall be raised from the dead!

And the fellowship of his sufferings - That I may participate in the same kind of sufferings that he endured; that is, that I may in all things be identified with him. Paul wished to be just like his Saviour. He felt that it was an honor to live as he did; to evince the spirit that he did, and to suffer in the same manner. All that Christ did and suffered was glorious in his view, and he wished in all things to resemble him. He did not desire merely to share his honors and triumphs in heaven, but, regarding his whole work as glorious, he wished to be wholly conformed to that, and, as far as possible, to be just like Christ. Many are willing to reign with Christ, out they would not be willing to suffer with him; many would be willing to wear a crown of glory like him, but not the crown of thorns; many would be willing to put on the robes of splendor which will be worn in heaven, but not the scarlet robe of contempt and mockery.

They would desire to share the glories and triumphs of redemption, but not its poverty, contempt, and persecution. This was not the feeling of Paul. He wished in all things to be just like Christ, and hence he counted it an honor to be permitted to suffer as he did. So Peter says, “Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings;” 1Pe 4:13. So Paul says Col 1:24 that he rejoiced in his sufferings in behalf of his brethren, and desired “to fill up that which was behind, of the afflictions of Christ,” or that in which he had hitherto come short of the afflictions which Christ endured. The idea is, that it is an honor to suffer as Christ suffered; and that the true Christian will esteem it a privilege to be made just like him, not only in glory, but in trial. To do this, is one evidence of piety; and we may ask ourselves, therefore, whether these are the feelings of our hearts. Are we seeking merely the honors of heaven, or should we esteem it a privilege to be reproached and reviled as Christ was - to have our names cast out as his was - to be made the object of sport and derision as he was - and to be held up to the contempt of a world as he was? If so, it is an evidence that we love him; if not so, and we are merely seeking the crown of glory, we should doubt whether we have ever known anything of the nature of true religion.

Being made conformable to his death - In all things, being just like Christ - to live as he did, and to die as he did. There can be no doubt that Paul means to say that he esteemed it so desirable to be just like Christ, that he would regard it as an honor to die in the same manner. He would rejoice to go with him to the cross, and to pass through the circumstances of scorn and pain which attended such a death. Yet how few there are who would be willing to die as Christ died, and how little would the mass of people regard it as a privilege and honor! Indeed, it requires an elevated state of pious feeling to be able to say that it would be regarded as a privilege and honor to die like Christ to have such a sense of the loveliness of his character in all things, and such ardent attachment to him, as to rejoice in the opportunity of dying as he did! When we think of dying, we wish to have our departure made as comfortable as possible. We would have our sun go down without a cloud. We would wish to lie on a bed of down; we would have our head sustained by the kind arm of a friend, and not left to fall, in the intensity of suffering, on the breast; we would wish to have the place where we die surrounded by sympathizing kindred, and not by those who would mock our dying agonies. And, if such is the will of God, it is not improper to desire that our end may be peaceful and happy; but we should also feel, if God should order it otherwise, that it would be an honor, in the cause of the Redeemer, to die amidst reproaches - to be led to the stake, as the martyrs have been - or to die, as our Master did, on a cross. They who are most like him in the scenes of humiliation here, will be most like him in the realms of glory.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

That I may know him. This knowledge of Christ the apostle prefers to all honours and advantages accruing from his adherence to the synagogue.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

That I may know him; as consequent upon the former he had by winning of Christ, he doth here insist upon sanctification, which would result from faith’s exerting itself in a further saving, experimental knowledge of Christ, to be found in whom, he undervalued all besides coniformity to Christ in holiness, being to have communion with him in righteousness, 1Co 1:30; God having appointed those who are found in Christ, to be conformed to his image in holiness, Rom 8:29; 2Co 3:18. This saving knowledge is expressed elsewhere in Scripture by the senses, Joh 10:4; 2Co 2:14; 4:6; Eph 1:18; 1Pe 2:3. All and only those found in Christ, do so know him, Joh 5:20; 6:46,69; Heb 8:11; and desire so to know him, Phi 1:9, that they may have a lively sense of his power, communion, and conformity.

The power of his resurrection; the power of his resurrection in us; i.e. from the death of the soul, under a privation of spiritual life, and the image of God, unto newness of life, by the effectual working of the same Spirit which raised Christ himself from the dead, Rom 6:4,10; Eph 1:20; 2:5,6; called the first resurrection, Rev 20:5; when the soul is raised from under the dominion of sin where it lay.

The fellowship of his sufferings; by communion of Christ’s sufferings, is not meant of bearing a part in the merit of his personal sufferings, but of being partaker of his sufferings in his members, or mystical body, whether inward or outward, (though this chiefly), Mat 20:23; Act 9:4; Rom 8:17; 2Co 1:7; 4:10,11; Ga 5:24; Col 1:24; 2Ti 2:11,12.

Being made comformable unto his death; some read, while made conformable to his death, not only in dying to sin, Rom 6:5,6, but in being conformed to his image in suffering, Rom 8:29; dying daily, or always living ready to be delivered to death for Jesus’ sake upon his call, Rom 8:18; 2Co 4:11. Such was his Christian temper, that he could cheerfully go through sufferings by reason of some communion and conformity he had in them with Jesus Christ.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

10. Know him—Freely justified, and in union with Christ, the great aim was to know him in the soul’s ever-deepening experience of his love, giving that inner knowledge of him which is realized only in union with him. Additional to this, the apostle would also know the power which Christ’s resurrection possesses, in the fullest experience of the new and holy life which the risen Christ through the Holy Spirit effects in them that believe; and, still more, he would in his union with his Lord know a participation in his sufferings as well as in his love, being made like him even in death. If he wished for martyrdom, he found it; yet this conformity to Christ’s death was not future but present, and was the characteristic of his sufferings. “I die daily,” (1Co_15:31,) and “Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus,” (2Co_4:10,) are parallel declarations.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

That I may know him (tou gnwnai auton). For the grammatical construction, see Winer, sect. 44:b. For the sense, comp. Joh_17:3, where Dr. Westcott notes, "In such a connection, Knowledge expresses the apprehension of the truth by the whole nature of man. It is not an acquaintance with facts as external, nor an intellectual conviction of their reality, but an appropriation of them (so to speak) as an influencing power into the very being of him who knows them." Ginwskein differs from eidenai : eidenai is "to know," gignwskein is "to recognize" or "to become acquainted with." We must be found in Christ in order to know him; we must have that righteousness which is through the faith of Christ, for we can know him only by being made like unto him. Comp. 1Jn_2:2, "When he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is;" and now those who see him by faith are in their measure being transformed into the same image. For the knowledge here spoken of is a personal knowledge, gained, not by hearing or reading, but by direct personal communion with the Lord; it is not theoretical, but experimental. "non expertus fuerit, non intelligit" (Anselm, quoted by Meyer). And the power of his resurrection. The resurrection of Christ was a glorious manifestation of Divine power. (Rom_1:4) That resurrection is now a power in the spiritual life of Christians: it stimulates the spiritual resurrection, the resurrection from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness. (comp. Rom_6:4 Col_2:12) It is the center of our most cherished hopes, the evidence of our immortality, the earnest of the resurrection of the body. And the fellowship of his sufferings. This clause and the last are bound together under one article, according to the best manuscripts. There is a very close connection between them. (comp. Rom_8:17 2Ti_2:11, 2Ti_2:12) To know the quickening power of his resurrection, we must share his sufferings. The Christian, meditating in loving thought on the sufferings of Christ, is led to feel ever a deeper, a more awful sympathy with the suffering Savior. And if, when we are called to suffer, we take it patiently, looking unto Jesus, then our sufferings are united with his sufferings, "we suffer with him." And he who hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows feels for us in his sacred heart, being "touched with the feeling of our infirmities." This fellowship in suffering leads through his grace to fellowship in glory. (2Co_4:10 Rom_6:5) Being made conformable unto his death; rather, as R.V, becoming conformed. The participle is present: it implies a continual progress. It is derived from the word morfh , form, used in Php_2:6 (where see note), and denotes, not a mere external resemblance, but a deep, real, inner conformity. The reference is not to the impending death of martyrdom, but to that daffy dying unto self and the world which the apostle exhibited in the heroic self-denials of his holy life: he was "crucified with Christ". (Gal_2:20; comp. also 1Co_15:31)

Vers. 10, 11. The knowledge of Christ: its degrees and its purpose.

I THE KNOWLEDGE OF HIS PERSON. This is the initiatory step. We must first recognize him to be our own God and Savior, and One who is to be altogether longed for. Nathanael thus knew him, (Joh_1:49) and St. Matthew. (Mat_16:16)

II THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION. This is a step beyond the simple knowledge of his person. It can be found only in our own spiritual experience when we recognize his power in the victory which he wins in us over the power of sin. St. Peter did not learn the power of Christ"s resurrection until he had received the Holy Ghost.

III THE FELLOWSHIP OF HIS SUFFERINGS. When we have experienced the power of his resurrection we begin to find that his sufferings are ours and ours are his. We begin to feel something of that keenest of all his sufferings, the misery of the presence and the power of sin. At the same time, we find that, by a certain law of reciprocity, our own sufferings are no longer exclusively our own, but that he is bearing them with us and for us,

IV BY THESE STAGES WE ARE MADE CONFORMABLE TO HIS DEATH. His death was an entire death unto sin; by our thus dwelling in him and he in us we also die unto sin.

V THUS DYING UNTO SIN WE ATTAIN TO THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD; i.e. not merely to the extension of life after physical death, but to the complete resurrection, which is the entire victory over every form of death, natural or spiritual. VW.H.

"The fellowship of his sufferings.

I THE CHRISTIAN IS CALLED INTO FELLOWSHIP OF HIS LORD"S SUFFERINGS.

1. He is called into fellowship with Christ. This is further implied by the clause, "becoming conformed unto his death." It is St. Paul"s conception of the heart and essence of the Christian life. He constantly describes the process of our union with Christ as involving our repetition of Christ"s experience of life, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension. The Christian life is an "Imitatio Christi.

2. The Christian is called to suffer with Christ. His life is not all suffering. Much Divine gladness shines across the path of his pilgrimage. But while new joys come with the gospel, new sorrows unfelt before also accompany it. Christ"s joy is in his people. (Joh_15:11) So also is his sorrow. The Christian has his Tabor and his Olivet; he has, too, his Gethsemane and his Calvary. (Rom_6:5 2Co_4:10)

3. The necessary experience of the Christian life involves a fellowship in the sufferings of Christ. The sufferings are not accidental.

(1) Externally, they are caused as Christ"s were caused. "A servant is not above his lord. If they persecuted me they will also persecute you". (Joh_15:20) St. Paul suffered from Jewish jealousy, as Christ did before. More generally the hatred of darkness to light which raged against the great Light of the world besets and attacks all the children of light.

(2) Internally, we have to fight all evil, and the mortal conflict is painful.

(3) Sympathetically, our union with Christ leads us to sorrow with him in his sorrow.

II THE FELLOWSHIP OF CHRIST"S SUFFERINGS IS ONE OF THE GREATEST CHRISTIAN PRIVILEGES. We might naturally take it to be quite otherwise. We might think it a thing to be submitted to simply as part of the necessary cost of entering the kingdom of heaven. But St. Paul reckons it as part of the gain in comparison with which all conceivable earthly advantages are but as refuse. How can this be? Surely we cannot embrace and love pain for its own sake.

1. Fellowship with Christ"s sufferings is a great honor. It is something to be counted worthy to suffer with him. We honor our noblest heroes by selecting them for the most arduous tasks.

2. This fellowship preserves us from many evils. Sorrow is a spiritual antiseptic. It kills the germs of corruption that breed freely in luxury. To be admitted into the sacred temple of the sorrows of Christ, to be touched with the solemn awe of his agony, and to feel in ourselves some faint throbs of this sublime passion, all this is to be called above the earthly scenes of folly and sin and to receive a baptism of purification.

3. This fellowship leads us to participation in Christs glory. The story does not end with the suffering. It looks tragic; but. it is no tragedy; for it issues in glad hallelujahs. But as even Christ was perfected through suffering, so much more must his disciples tread the via dolorosa in order to reach their triumph. It is they who suffer with him who will also be glorified together with him. W.F.A.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The knowledge of Christ, mentioned in the eighth verse, is here more largely explained. That I may know him - As my complete saviour. And the power of his resurrection - Raising me from the death of sin, into all the life of love. And the fellowship of his sufferings - Being crucified with him. And made conformable to his death - So as to be dead to all things here below.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Our apostle had, in the foregoing verse, expressed his earnest desire to be found in Christ, with respect to his justification; in this verse, with respect to his sanctification, he desires to know Christ, as the Messiah and Mediator, that he might experience the power of his resurrection, raising him from the death of sin to a life of grace and holiness, and taste something of that comfort and joy which is found in suffering with him and for him, and to be made conformable to his death, by a daily dying unto sin: knowing, that if he were conformed to him in the likeness of his death, he should be also in the likeness of his resurrection.

Here note, 1. What it is that a person justified by the righteousness of Christ doth most desire; namely, a spirit of holiness and sanctification flowing from Christ, to enable him to live unto him.

That I may know the power of his resurrection, that is, experience that divine power in my soul, quickening me to a life of grace, which Christ experienced in quickening his dead body when it lay in the grave. "It is as great a work of the Spirit to form Christ in the heart of a sinner, as it was to fashion him in the womb, or to raise him from the grave," (says the pious bishop Reynolds upon the place.)

Note, 2. That such as are justified and sanctified by the Spirit of Christ are willing to have fellowship with him in his sufferings, not ambitious to share with him in the merit of his sufferings, but desirous to participate with him in the benefit of his sufferings, and also to be conformed to him in their own sufferings; the members think it an honour to be like their head, their suffering head, as well as their glorified head; and well they may, for in and under all their sufferings, especially for him, they have his presence with them, his compassion to moderate them, his strength to bear them, his intercession to preserve from falling away in them; and his crown, after they have suffered awhile, to reward them for them.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

ARGUMENT 10

PAULINE EXPERIENCE

10. “To know him. ” Paul, standing in the front of the ministry, enjoying the most gigantic intellect, highest culture, and greatest human honors, was utterly ignorant of God till that wonderful introduction on the Damascus road. In a similar manner all souls, who ever reach the kingdom, must become personally acquainted with Christ. “And the dynamite of his resurrection.” In regeneration the very same power that raised the dead body of Christ into life must resurrect your dead soul. When Lazarus had been raised from the dead, he knew it better than anybody else. Hence, the Lord’s salvation is the most knowable thing in all the world. “And the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable to his death.” In regeneration, we are raised from the dead; in sanctification, we die. None but disciples ever go to heaven. We must not only follow Christ to the manger, and be born of the Spirit in utter obscurity, but we must follow him to Gethsemane, and there make our complete and final consecration, enduring the agony of the bloody sweat, when our human will gives up the world, and consents to die. Then you must see Barabbas go up, and you go down. If you get sanctified, you must consent to be misunderstood; yes, and misjudged by all the influential people in the world. You need not be surprised if the community look upon the saloonkeeper as a better man than yourself. You must also be nailed to the cross between two thieves;. i.e.., you must consent to render yourself scandalous for Christ’s sake. They will consign you a place with the slumites, rustics, and outlandish of the earth, when you get saved from jewelry, style, needless ornamentation, foolish fashions, and all sorts of worldly conformity. You must die so dead to everything but God, that when a non-sympathizing world plunges the spear of persecution or scandal into your heart, you will not kick. The Lord needs an army of dead people to conquer the world for Christ. You can plug a dead man full of bullets; instead of hurting him, you will only lose your ammunition. You can not depend on the unsanctified to stand in front of the battle. They are all afraid of getting hurt. You can make breastworks of dead men, and they will never flicker. It was Paul’s privilege, like Jesus, to seal his faith with his blood. You and I may not enjoy this honor; but we must certainly have the experience which qualifies us for it.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

10. That I may know him. By enjoying his presence in the soul; an experimental knowledge. And the power of his resurrection. The resurrection demonstrated him to be the Son of God with power (Rom. 1:4). The mighty power that worked in his resurrection works in the saints (1) in their resurrection from spiritual death to a new life (Col. 2:13; Eph. 1:19–23). It is therefore a present power. (2) It works also when they are lifted from the dead to eternal life. Consciousness of the victory over sin is the earnest of the ultimate triumph over death. And the fellowship of his sufferings. Christ's life is the plan of that of the saint. Like him, we take the cross, are crucified with him (Rom. 6:6), are baptized into his death (Rom. 6:3), are planted in the likeness of his death, and are risen with him (Col. 3:1). In all these we look to the suffering Savior, and are conformed to his death. Not only do we take the form of his sufferings, but we sympathize with him. If the obedience is from the heart, there is a partaking of his sufferings.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

10.] (aim and employment of this righteousness,—taking up again the ὑπερέχον τῆς γνώσεως, ver. 8. De W., al., treat τοῦ γν. as parallel with ἵνα κερδήσω, κ.τ.λ. But as Mey. remarks, it is no real parallel, for there is more in ἵνα χρ. κερδήσω &c. than in τοῦ γνῶναι αὐτόν &c. Besides, thus the process of thought is disturbed,—in which, from ἵνα to ἐπὶ τῇ πίστει answers to διὰ τὸν χριστόν above, and from τοῦ γν. to νεκρῶν answers to διὰ τὸ ὑπερέχον τ. γνώσεως αὐτοῦ. See a similar construction, Rom 6:6), in order to know Him (know, in that fulness of experimental knowledge, which is only wrought by being like Him), and (not = ‘that is to say:’ but additional: His Person, and … and …) the power of His resurrection (i.e. not ‘the power by which He was raised,’ but the power which His resurrection exercises on believers—in assuring them of their justification, Rom 4:25; 1Co 15:17;—mostly however here, from the context which goes on to speak of conformity with His sufferings and death,—in raising them with Him,—cf. Rom 6:4; Col 2:12),—and the participation of His sufferings (which is the necessitating condition of being brought under the power of His resurrection, see as above, and 2Ti 2:11), being conformed (the nominative is an anacoluthon, belonging to τοῦ γνῶναι, and referring, as often, to the logical subject) to His Death (it does not appear to me that St. Paul is here speaking, as Mey., al., of his imminent risk of a death of martyrdom, but that his meaning is general, applying to his whole course of suffering and self-denial, as indeed throughout the sentence. This conformity with Christ’s death was to take place by means of that perfect self-abjuration which he here asserts of himself—see Rom 8:29; 2Co 2:14; 2Co 4:10 ff.; 1Co 15:31, and especially Gal 2:20), if by any means (so Thucyd. ii. 77, πᾶσαν γὰρ ἰδέαν ἐπενόουν, εἴ πως σφίσιν ἄνευ δαπάνης κ. πολιορκίας προσαχθείη: Herod. vi. 52, βουλομένην, εἴ κως ἀμφότεροι γενοίατο βασιλῆες. It is used when an end is proposed, but failure is presumed to be possible: see Hartung, ii. 206; Kühner, ii. 584. ὅμως μετὰ ταῦτα πάντα οὔπω θαῤῥῶ· ὅπερ ἀλλαχοῦ λέγει ὁ δοκῶν ἑστάναι βλεπέτω μὴ πέσῃ. κ. πάλιν, φοβοῦμαι μή πως ἄλλοις κηρύξας, αὐτὸς ἀδόκιμος γένωμαι. Chrys.) I may attain (not future, but subjunctive aorist. On the sense, see Act 26:7; from which alone, it is evident that it does not signify ‘live until,’ as Van Hengel) unto the resurrection from the dead (viz. the blessed resurrection of the dead in Christ, in which οἱ τοῦ χριστοῦ shall rise ἐν τῇ παρουσίᾳ αὐτοῦ, 1Co 15:23, see also 1Th 4:16. But the ἐξ- in ἐξανάστ. does not distinctively point out this first resurrection, but merely indicates rising up, out of the dust; cf. the verb Mar 12:19 L., Act 15:5, and the word itself in ref. Polyb.).

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

That I may know Him [του γνωναι αυτον] . Know is taken up from knowledge, ver. 8, and is joined with be found in Him, qualified by not having, etc. That I may be found in Him not having, etc., but having the righteousness which is of God so as to know him, etc.

The power of His resurrection [την δυναμιν της αναστασεως αυτου] . Power of His resurrection and fellowship of His sufferings furnish two specific points further defining the knowledge of Him. By the power of Christ 's resurrection is meant the power which it exerts over believers. Here, more especially, according to the context, in assuring their present justification, and its outcome in their final glorification. See Rom 4:24, 25; Rom 8:11, 30; 1Co 14:17; Col 3:4; Phi 3:21. Fellowship of His sufferings. Participation in Christ 's sufferings. See Mt 20:22, 23; and on Col 1:24. Compare 2Co 1:5; 1Pe 4:13. Faith makes a believer one with a suffering Christ.

Being made conformable [συμμορφιζομενος] . Explaining the previous clause : by my becoming conformed, etc. Rev., becoming conformed.

Compare 2Co 4:10; Rom 6:5. For conformed see on Mt 17:2, and on form, ch. 2 6. The most radical conformity is thus indicated : not merely undergoing physical death like Christ, but conformity to the spirit and temper, the meekness and submissiveness of Christ; to His unselfish love and devotion, and His anguish over human sin.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.