Confidence in the Flesh, Philippians, 3:4-6

Good morning. I wanted to bring up a couple of things before we move into our study of Philippians here. And those couple of things go like this. One is that, I'll wait till we get the kids out of the picture here. We have something going on here that's kind of begun this last week, and that is that If you happen to take a little visit downstairs in the basement area, there's some restoration work down there and you'll see things sheeted off.

Okay? It's a great thing that's going on. Please, if you have any kids or if you have any kids in sight or reach of you or whatever, keep them away from it. Okay? It's not profoundly dangerous, but it'd be better if we don't get messes and things of that sort. Okay? So just one word of caution there.

The other thing I wanted to bring up here is, you know, as we've been going through Philippians, we of course dig into some pretty meaty stuff, right? We go into the Greek as this and the culture as that and the grammar is such a way. And yes, we go there and we intentionally dig into some meaty stuff. But I think there's an important perspective that we want to make sure does not get lost in that. as we deal with all these little fine details.

My brother and I, he's a shepherd, if you will, at a church over in California, a Bible church as well. And he and I, we do on the computer what's called IMing. That is, he can send a message and I get it like seconds later, you know, and back and forth. And he and I will IM off and on throughout the day, almost every day of the week. And so we'll share things.

Hey, I found out about this passage, or did you notice this about this one? And one of the things we were sharing last week I wanted to share with you. When we were pointing out that, you know, yes, we'll sit there and look at the Greek on this and we'll look at the grammar on that and here's this cultural background and this historical feature and that's all good and well. It is not because we are just real sticklers about words on a page, okay? This isn't because we're just exceedingly stubborn or somehow intellectually occupied, okay?

These words we pay intense attention to, because these are the words of the mind of God. These are God's thoughts, and that's why we have an intense interest in exactly what it says. And we don't want to miss a little bit, and we don't want to misunderstand it or get it wrong.

It is not because we're just so intellectually tied up with these words on a page. It is because we are passionately occupied with the Lamb. And the way my brother put it, he says, this is Lamb's breath. And if we understand that, then this intensity with which we understand Scripture takes on a whole new dimension. We are not here to just fill our heads with intellect. We are totally and fully occupied with His Son. And His Son has been revealed in these words that we are so passionately interested in.

Do I make my point? Yeah. We're not here to get intellectual. We're not here to just have church, not to just check it off the spiritual checklist or the list of things to do. It is because we are occupied with His Son. And there could be nothing more better in the entire universe And that's why we look at these words. If the studying of these words is just simply an intellectual pursuit, then let's call it quits and go home. That's not what it's for. We're here to study these words because these are lamb's breasts. We are occupied with the Son, and that's why these words are so profoundly interesting.

It is the message of the mind of God as we are seated next to Him. Anyway, with that, let's proceed. What I wanted to do here was to begin back in the first verse, not to go through all the detail, but just to make sure we've got the big picture of what Paul is beginning to say. Make sense? Okay.

He has turned a corner after the first two chapters and begun to say here, you know, he's saying, I'm about to give you some warnings, but I'm going to start that off by spelling out to you, this is the real key, rejoice in the Lord. That's the starting point that he begins with.

He says, no problem for me to tell you, and for you it's a safeguard. That's the focal point. Then he gives the warning. It's no good to just simply give a warning, he's trying to give the bigger picture. The point is just the very point I was making before.

Rejoice in the Lord has to do with beholding Him and rejoicing in who we are in Him and who He is in you. That's what he's making the point about here. He precedes his warning with that. Then he goes on and says, beware, the beware that we looked at last week is of these Judaizers who are coming in and trying to institute the law as the means of your spiritual continuance, if you will. And he says, why? He says, because of who we are in Christ, and because of how that gets expressed. He finally ends that off with, "...and put no confidence in the flesh." And remember when we looked at that last week, we kind of ended with that thought.

We put no confidence in the flesh. So, as we step into this passage that we're looking at here this morning, he says, "...although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh." If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more. So now he goes from the transition, we don't put any confidence in the flesh, but just in case anybody does, let me tell you something. And so he goes on there in verses 5 and 6, and what he's doing here is he begins to lay out and he says, look, if anybody wants to put confidence in the flesh, look, I've got plenty of reason to do so. I don't, but I've got plenty of reason to do so.

And that's what he's beginning to lay out. This word confidence is now used twice in this passage. It is, real interestingly, he's used the word confidence a number of times so far in Philippians. These two places are the last times we see the word. But he uses that phrase in the flesh now for the third time here since he's started in on this subject.

Now this word flesh is a reminder from last week We looked at the word flesh has several different definitions. In the context, he's looking at human credentials. Certainly, those human credentials rely on the flesh that is the sinful nature. There's no question about that. He's about to lay out his human credentials, and so he makes it clear what he's talking about. Now, there's a cultural insight here, and it has a parallel even in our own culture.

Open boasting of human credentials in the New Testament times would have been considered out of line. You wouldn't have done that normally. But it would be allowable in those days if it was a sort of a social self-defense. That is, if you were saying, look, these guys are kind of attacking my credentials and so I'll lay them out and then set them aside, but I can do that. And so what Paul was doing was in keeping with what would have been the socially acceptable thing at that time. What we get the picture of is this.

These Judaizers, these ones who are trying to bring in the Mosaic laws, the means of continuance for believers in spiritual things, those who are trying to do this were apparently boasting, oh, I've got this qualification, and we do this, and we have this background. And Paul says, well, if they want to match up that, I don't place any stock in it, but I've got the greatest thing, in terms of a list of credentials. So he's going to lay those out, and as we'll see very quickly, he doesn't found his own set of personal spiritual values on those credentials. Now, here's what the implication is of this first verse.

He says, although I myself might have, that is, he would have a basis for confidence in his human credentials if he were actually to consider them a value. So that's what he says, although I myself might have. That's what he's talking about. If I wanted to put some value in it, I could. Confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, for example, those Judaizers Paul just described for instance, then I far more than the Judaizers. That's the full sense of what he's laying across to them here. If these guys want to come and start comparing credentials, sure, I've got them. And I'll tell you about it, but then I'll tell you what's more important, too. So Paul lists here his seven human credentials in the next couple of verses.

Circumcised the eighth day, first one, of the nation of Israel, of course. Of the tribe of Benjamin, ah, all the more special. A Hebrew of Hebrews, the epitome. As to the law, a Pharisee. As to zeal, a persecutor of the Church, demonstrating it full well. And finally, as to the righteousness, which is in the law, found blameless.

Now notice how many of these human credentials he's got here. Seven, right? One of the things that we discovered when we went through the book of Revelation is that the number seven in the culture of the time was considered the number of completeness. So not only is Paul saying, I have good credentials, he says, my credentials are complete. Now, there's another way to look at this, though. Look at this. Here's credentials Paul was born into, right here. These things are all things that he basically had nothing to do, right? He had nothing to do with. Those are all things he was born into as of his family. But he lists those first. Then, the next things that you see, these are credentials had by his own will and efforts.

So he says, I've got all the right combination. I've got all the right background and all the right accomplishments. The combination of the two is perfect. It's a complete set. Something about credentials. Credentials tend to be as Paul has listed. I've got the right background, right? Typically background things are things that you don't have any particular involvement in, it's just things you happen to have been born into, but the right background.

And the second point there being accomplishments. All the things I've done are the right things to do. And aren't they impressive? Don't they look good to other people? I've put all the effort, I've got the right heart, I'm passionate about it. typically these are the way credentials stack up. Now let's look at his credentials one at a time.

First he says he was circumcised on the eighth day. Now, of course, any of the Gentiles who were brought into the Jewish faith could be circumcised, and of course, since the church in Philippi was largely Gentiles, what were they doing? They were saying, okay, all you adult males, you've got to be circumcised. This foreskin's got to be cut off. But the point Paul is making here is, I was born into it, circumcised on the eighth day, meaning I was born into the Jewish faith, and I've been circumcised since the first legal day when you could and were supposed to do that. Whereas these others, many of these Judaizers, didn't have that qualification. They were converted, and so they were circumcised sometime later.

Paul says, I am an original. He was circumcised on the eighth day according to the law, and that did have a higher standing. It's real interesting. The Jews, as we well know, had lots of traditions, and one of the traditions that they had was that circumcision was more valuable and important than even keeping the Sabbath. Isn't that interesting? This is Rabbi Yosef. By the way, that doesn't say Jose, okay? That's important, see? That's not Jose. They didn't speak Spanish. Okay. It's Rabbi Yosef, okay?

Writing in the Jewish Mishnah says, Great is circumcision which overrides even the Sabbath. Can you imagine that? I don't know what the ladies are supposed to do, but anyway, that's what he said. Okay, now, the next thing, you notice this male circumcision, that was a long-standing tradition. It had already been practiced starting back with Abraham some 2,000 years, and since then, and this is only things in the last century here that happen to have some kind of symbols of here, It still continued among those practicing Judaism. It had been already a long-standing 2,000-year-old tradition by the time Paul was writing this.

He says next, I am of the nation of Israel. Remember, frequently people would come to Christ and they would say, I am a son of Abraham, born into the right family, of the nation of Israel. Israel was the other name for Jacob, and we find his name there in Genesis. All of his descendants are therefore the nation of Israel, also called the Sons of Israel, the House of Israel, or Israelites, some different titles. The same basic message. I'm of the right stock.

I'm out of the right group. And remember the name that the Jews would have for those who were not Jews. Dogs, not pet dogs, remember? Kuan. wild packs of roaming, savage dogs. Diseased, mangy, and pitiful. In Romans 9, 4, and 5, Paul writes, Israelites, and notice he lists all these privileges of those of this nation, to whom belongs the adoption of sons, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the temple service, and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is overall, God bless forever, Amen. So Paul is listing all these benefits of being of that group.

Here's Israel, this tiny little nation on the planet. A tiny little area. To give it some kind of a comparison, it would be in size, the area this side of the Rockies going from the Wyoming border down to Colorado Springs. That's not that big. That's the area that it constitutes now.

Here is this area that was given to the Jews, and Paul says, I was born into that right stock, that right racial stock, I've got it. And anybody else that tries to come into it now, they don't. They're brought in, not me. He says, furthermore, I'm of the tribe of Benjamin. Remember, the first king of Israel was Saul. And guess what Paul's name was before he became a believer? Saul. I'm of the right name, I'm named the same name as the first king of Israel who was of the tribe of Benjamin.

The tribe of Benjamin also had some other qualifications. Benjamin was the only son who was born in the land that was promised. But that's not all. If you remember the story in the book of Esther, Mordecai, who was involved in basically keeping the Jews from extermination under the foreign government, Mordecai was also the tribe of Benjamin.

The list goes on. Oh, you can find some scoundrels too, but lots of things to brag about. Lots of things to look at and say, see, we're of the right group. So Paul had that to list. Also, at the time he was writing, the records of the genealogy of all the Jews was kept in the Temple in Jerusalem, which was destroyed in 70 AD, so at the time he was writing, anybody could have gone and confirmed this list. Yes, he was indeed of the tribe, and he mentions it not only here, but in Acts. He finally says, I'm a Hebrew of Hebrews. What's he talking about?

This name Hebrew was given in Genesis as well, a long established name saying I was of the right lineage. It's interesting, this linguistically similar name is found in lots of the writings of countries around the Jews, called a hapiru or a habiru, and it's found in lots of papyrus and cuneiform writings in the centuries from Abraham on.

But this is an expression, this Hebrew of Hebrews, it's an expression that we actually have something similar in our culture, If someone is the epitome, the classical case of a group, we will use a similar expression, a similar figure of speech. The example that I came up with here is Robert E. Lee was written of by one author as a soldier of soldiers and a gentleman of gentlemen.

The classic case, the epitome of the group. The stereotype, if you will. That's what Paul is saying. Of all the Hebrews, I am the classic case. I am the epitome, the apex. the best example you can come up with for qualifying to be in that group. None better. A Hebrew of Hebrews, he says.

This phrase also kind of summarizes the rest of what Paul has already said about his having been born into the nation of Israel, having been circumcised the eighth day. All of his inherited background made him right in the middle of the definition of everything that it took to be an Israelite.

Now Paul moves into those outward expressions. Remember, he's had four expressions that are basically things he was born into. Now three of them that are his own zeal, his own passion, his own efforts. And he brings those forth. As to the law, a Pharisee. As to zeal, a persecutor of the church. Can't get any more zealous than that. As to the righteousness which is in the law, found blameless.

That sounds pretty good, right? We'll see about that. Now, one thing to make clear. We're going to talk about the Mosaic Law. The Mosaic Law isn't a mosaic that says law. It's the Law of Moses. It's not a law about how to make mosaics. It's the law given by and through Moses, okay? So just so that's clear. The Mosaic Law, by the way, is also not just the Ten Commandments. Frequently, those in Christendom, I'll say, kind of glom onto the Ten Commandments and they say, okay, we're going to keep the law.

Hey, that's just the down payment. That's just the front end, okay? There are 613 laws 365, just like the number of days in the year, were negative. That is, don't do this. Thou shalt not do that. Or 248 positive commandments. You must do this. You must do that.

So the Ten Commandments, which has been a big issue this last week, hasn't it? The Ten Commandments is just the first little bit of it. And so Paul wasn't saying, I keep the ten. He says, I keep them all. but he goes deeper than that, as we'll see in a little bit.

Plus the extensions of the law. What the Pharisees did is they said, we don't want anybody possibly breaking any of these laws, and so to make sure you don't make any mistake about any of those laws, we'll make a whole bunch of extra laws that make sure that you don't break the ones that are given. You think 613 is a lot to keep track of, What they said is, no, we've got to make a whole bunch more for each one of those so that you make sure you don't break the law. They defined, if you will, a fence around the law, an extra fence. Now, so here's an example.

In Exodus 23.19 and 34.26, it says you may not boil a baby goat in its mother's milk. That's one of the laws. So what do the Pharisees do? They said, ah, we want to make sure that we don't possibly even break that So we won't eat milk and meat together, any kind of milk and meat together, and we'll further define that you can't have milk and meat within six hours of each other.

So that's to make sure that you follow this law. Now, is that what this says? No. They added more laws to it in order to make sure that you didn't even get close to breaking the one that was given. See that? So when he says, I followed the law, it wasn't just he followed the law, he followed the 613 and all the other hundreds more that were built around that to make sure he didn't break the 613. Then, here's another example, they would give one-tenth of everything, even down to if they had a little garden herb and they went and plucked the garden herb for tonight's dinner. They'd go and snip off a tenth of that and give that, and make sure that they gave that too. These are their ways of looking to infinite detail to make sure you didn't, even in the slightest possible way, break the law. Break the law of Moses.

Here were these Pharisees, and a lot of times we tend to think of the Pharisees as the bad guys, because after all you hear about Jesus condemning them in Matthew 23, for example. You know, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, Jesus is arguing with them. We tend to think of the Pharisees as the bad guys. But remember, it wasn't exactly like that.

Most of the Jews thought of the Pharisees as the good guys. They wore the white hats. They were the real champions and masters of the Mosaic Law. And so they looked upon these guys as the heroes. The Pharisees were the heroes. So that's why Paul could go out and say, I was asked to the law a Pharisee. Well, everybody looks up to a Pharisee, they wear the white hats.

See? Not a bad guy, he says, I'm a really good guy. Everybody looked up to me. See? That would be as opposed to the Sadducees. And the Sadducees are not Sadducee, but they are a very sad case. Okay. Here's the deal. The Sadducees were different The Pharisees would take all the Old Testament and they would say, we believe in the whole thing. The Sadducees instead would just take the first five books. So he says, we didn't just take the first five books of the Old Testament like the Sadducees, we took the whole thing!

Now, here was Paul, he was a Pharisee, he was well on his way to being of the top echelon, the top group of all of Israel. He had been trained, he makes clear, by Gamaliel, who in a couple of different places in Acts is recorded as being on the Sanhedrin, the top group of about 24 who were the top echelon of Israel. Paul, having been trained by him, following Judaism the way he had, was on his way to being in the top group.

Instead he became a Christian, right? Now, let's look more at these Pharisees, because he's staking a lot on this. They were merchants and tradesmen. A lot of times we think they just kind of went around talking. They actually worked, and that's why Paul himself did what? Tent making, right? So he was one of them. So he didn't just say, I'm going to be a Pharisee for a living. He also had a trade, as did the Pharisees. They actually worked for a living.

They believed the entire Old Testament to be authoritative. As we said, the Sadducees, only the first five books. They believed in angels and demons, as well as in reward and punishment for people in the afterlife. The Sadducees did not. Can you imagine? The Sadducees, this is it. This is all you got. Follow the law, follow Moses, do all the right stuff, and when you're all done, you're done. Excited about that? I couldn't be either. But anyway, the Sadducees were contrary to the Pharisees here. The Pharisees taught that the way to God was through obedience to the Mosaic law as expanded through their traditions.

They established and controlled synagogues. They'd go around Israel and other places throughout the Roman Empire, establishing these synagogues, setting them in place. You wonder how the synagogues got started? That's how. These were the guys. They were missionary-minded about converting Gentiles to the sect of Judaism, and that was likely some of the influence in pressuring the people at Philippi to be a part of the Judaizers. Then he finally comes along as to zeal a persecutor of the Church. This drawing here is an artist's rendering of Stephen being killed and Paul and some of the others standing by. So as to his zeal in persecuting the church, Paul was second to none.

He was in the top. He was top-ranked. He said, I persecuted the church even to the point of death. He carried that as testimony. Paul, who is also called Saul, was so zealous for the law, to him it made sense, here are these people teaching grace where you can just get around the law. And to him that was horrible.

What a despicable thought. After all, the law of Moses is the highest thing there is. So anyone who is going to come up and say that you can just simply be saved by grace and live by grace, that was a horrible thought. And grace is still hated, isn't it? Same thing here. Paul is just saying, if the law is the very best thing, then grace has to be put away.

He says, I was so zealous for the law, I did in every church member I could. Every person who believed in Jesus Christ and entirely relied upon God's grace. He says, I'm going after that one, because that's not what the law says. as to righteousness which is in the law, found blameless.

In Matthew 23, our Lord is speaking to the Pharisees, and this is kind of his last words to them actually, that we have recorded. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Now remember, these are the heroes of Israel. And he says, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs on the outside, appear beautiful, but inside they're full of dead man's bones and all uncleanness." So this is why Paul would say, as to the righteousness which comes by the law, found blameless. Looks good on the outside. He says, I was polished to the hilt. Every fine detail of the Pharisees' law and all their traditions and elaborations, I've got it down pat. Inside, different story.

Paul is going to give us a clue here, and we'll look at it next time here in Philippians 3.9, of what he says about his own righteousness in the law.

So let's take a look at these verses. This is the expanded and explained portion. And by the way, let me make a comment here. Bob Lockwood made a suggestion. Why don't we take these expanded and explained sections and put them together and make a complete expanded and explained kind of a commentary on Philippians.

So anyway, Nancy's already got that done as far as we're done here. So we're going to go ahead and do that. And then what we'll do at the end is then hand that out as well and she'll be able to put it with the rest of your study so you can use it as a means to kind of study portions of it. Anyway, let's go through this here. Starting with verse 4.

Although I, Paul, could overwhelm the credentials of the Judaizers, and indeed he could, couldn't he? if I had any confidence in human credentials. If anyone else, such as any of the Judaizers, has a perspective such as to put confidence in human flesh, I have far more impressive human credentials than any of them.

I was circumcised on the eighth day in accordance with Mosaic law, so I am born into the nation of Israel through law-abiding parents, and I am not a Gentile convert, as many of the Judaizers are. I am born of the bloodline of the tribe of Benjamin, which is the kingly lineage of Saul, Benjamin being the only son of Jacob actually born in the land of Israel. I am in every way the very epitome of all that makes one a Hebrew. As to the law given through Moses, I am in every regard a leader in the party of the Pharisees.

And in verse 6, as to the measuring my human qualifications by the degree of zeal for the law, I was the foremost and most aggressive persecutor of those who claim salvation through faith in Christ alone, even pursuing them to the point of death. As to the righteousness which can be established by external obedience to the Mosaic law and all its extensions and convolutions through tradition, I was repeatedly found blameless in the estimation of my peers, the Pharisees.

Now, Paul's setting us up here, isn't he? He's got some further points to make on this, and so we're not done. We'll get back to this, because he's going to follow on with some profound statements here that we'll most certainly want to pay attention to. But even at this point, we've got some good questions to ask. Questions. Think about this.

How long do human credentials matter? How long do they matter? something to ponder a bit. How much do they matter? How important are they? Or, especially as Paul's putting it out here, how important are they when it comes to spiritual things? If you think about human credentials, human credentials do what? They allow us to compare ourselves with other humans.

That's what it does, doesn't it? All these credentials. I was born of the right stock. I have this background. One of the things that's real popular these days, and I've enjoyed it some myself, is studying your genealogy. And it's real interesting. I've got all sorts of royal and noble backgrounds, as well as a bunch of scoundrels back there.

But when you look at it, all the background that we have, All the background that we have, all it does is allow us to compare ourselves to other human beings. If we look at all the accomplishments, I've got this degree, and I've got that background, and I've accomplished this, and I've done this, and been there, and I can do this, and I have this capability. Whether it's our background or whether it's our own zeal and effort, either way you look at it, all it allows us to do is compare ourselves to other human beings.

Paul is about to make a comparison here in the next verses that's certainly going to want to be something we look at. I think, you know, as we look at it here, just even at this point, it's valuable for us to just to look at, Paul is laying this out, these are all fleshly measures. These are all measures that human beings use to compare with one another.

Didn't he himself say, if somebody has this, I've got far more? He's got great credentials. But when we look at it, credentials, that impresses other people. What really matters here, when it comes to spiritual things, is not how impressed other people are. Fortunately, we, by grace alone, have the credentials of Christ. We have His righteousness. We have His life. We have who He is.

And ultimately, the Lord's not interested in comparing us to other human beings, is He? There's no interest in that. What's marvelous here is, completely by grace, we have the credentials of Christ, the position that is totally in Him, and completely in Him. We don't have to worry about, well, I was or was not born into the right group from a human standpoint. We don't have to worry about, boy, you know, I got to make sure, I got to make sure that I do this at church and sign up for that and go here and attend certain percentage or whatever, you know, measure we want to put to it. All those human credentials count for nothing before the Lord, because the Lord is not looking at those. The Lord is looking for the credentials of Jesus Christ in us.

That's impressive to Him. That's what's impressive to Him, not what we can stack up, not what we can put on a resume. The Lord won't be the least interest in what sort of impressive human credentials we can come up with. The Lord is impressed by His Son and who He is and His credentials.

Those will last. Let's pray. Lord, thank you that we have this overwhelming and awesome privilege not to stand on our own credentials, or not to even be concerned that they'll fall short. Instead, we have the overwhelmingly pleasing and satisfying credentials of Jesus Christ. And we are indeed in Him in every regard, and He in us. And Lord, we are grateful that we can stand on the credentials of our blessed Savior, and that that will be eternally satisfying to you. And Lord, we could do no better, because it is only in your Son that you will be pleased and happy and satisfied. Those are credentials that cannot be topped. and to which there is no equal. We thank you for that blessed salvation that we have in you and every spiritual blessing. Thank you for who we are in Him. In Jesus' name, Amen.