Philippians 3:10Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

But this also comes from great faith. We believe not only that Christ rose, but also that after His Resurrection He has great power.

For this reason we walk the same path He walked. Therefore we become His brothers, and, so to speak, for this reason also become christs.

Oh, how great is the dignity of sufferings! We believe that through sufferings we are conformed to His death.

As in baptism "we are buried together in the likeness of His death," so here we are conformed to His death.

There the Apostle rightly said, "the likeness of His death" (Rom 6:5), because we did not wholly die. We died not bodily according to the flesh, but to sin.

Since both are called death, Christ died bodily, while we died to sin.

There died the man whom He assumed, the man in our body. Here dies the man of sin.

Therefore in the one case the Apostle said, "the likeness of His death," but in the other he speaks not of the likeness of death, but of death itself.

So Paul, the imitator of Christ, says: "being conformed to His death, if by any means I may attain to the resurrection of the dead" (Phil 3:10-11).

How, then, do we become "in the likeness of His death"? By being "buried with Him through baptism" (Rom 6:4-5).

What is the form of this burial? And why is such imitation beneficial?

First, the order of the former life must be brought to an end. According to the Lord's word, this is impossible for one "unless he is born from above" (Jn 3:8).

For rebirth, as the very name shows, is the beginning of a new life. Therefore, before the new life begins, the preceding life must be ended.

Among those who run back and forth in the course, two opposite movements are separated by a certain pause and rest.

So also, in the change of life, it proved necessary that death should stand between the one life and the other. It ends the preceding life and begins the life that follows.

How, then, do we accomplish the descent into Hades? By imitating Christ's burial in baptism, because the bodies of those baptized are, as it were, buried in the water.

It is received through faith in His redeeming sacrifice of sufferings for mankind, for their justification before the Father.

"Faith in Jesus Christ grants the remission of all sins. Bringing down the grace of the Holy Spirit into the heart through the mysteries, it sanctifies the heart and makes it pure before the eyes of the all-seeing God Himself.

This is essential righteousness. The Apostle possessed it. Everyone also must possess it.

Do not rely on your works that are visibly performed. Seek this inward grace of holiness built in the spirit, for everything is in it. Without it, everything is nothing."

"Having known the Lord Jesus Christ by faith, one must enter into communion with His sufferings. Through this one becomes worthy to obtain the glorious resurrection in Him."

"The death on the Cross replaced all sacrifices. Whoever enters into suffering with the Lord appropriates the power of His death on the Cross and full justification before divine righteousness."

"The Lord acquired salvation for you by sufferings. If you wish to receive your salvation from Him and make it your own, suffer together with the Lord."

"One kind of co-suffering is through outward afflictions and privations. Another kind is the struggle with passions and desires (Gal 5:24; 1 Cor 9:27).

Here are meant all acts of self-mortification, in which there is no less pain than in outward sufferings."

"The glorious resurrection can be attained only through suffering with the Lord."

"When all the passions are driven out, good dispositions take their place. The whole soul comes alive, as though it rises from the dead.

Whoever rises in this way will undoubtedly be counted worthy of the glorious resurrection. The Apostle desires to rise in soul in this life through overcoming the passions and establishing the virtues" (Bishop Theophan).

"If we do not die and come to life in this way, we shall not attain the glorious resurrection," says St. John Chrysostom.

But do not claim glory for yourself beforehand, for the Apostle also says that he is not yet certain of attaining glory (cf. 1 Cor 10:12).

Defining all this as the knowledge of Christ, our more recent interpreter says: "This knowledge is, of course, not dead and speculative.

It is a knowledge impossible without being in the One known. It is knowledge through appropriating Christ to oneself, through communion with Him, with His sufferings, death, and Resurrection.

It is communion with the fullness of divine powers and gifts of the Holy Spirit that belong to Him (cf. Rom 6:3-4; 1 Cor 10:16; Col 2:9-11)" (Nazarevsky, p. 123).

The Apostle wished to abide in Christ and be found in Him for this purpose. First, he wished to attain full knowledge of Him, and chiefly to know the great power and meaning of His resurrection from the dead.

Second, he wished to enter into communion with Christ in His sufferings, that is, to endure the same afflictions which Christ endured from sinners.

Third, he wished thus to die in a manner like Him, that is, to put to death the old man within himself.

For this he will, like Christ, be raised to glory. Yet the Apostle, with his characteristic humility, speaks of this only conditionally: "if by any means I may attain."

Still, he does not mean that he has already succeeded in attaining this perfect knowledge of Christ. He only strives zealously to grasp moral perfection, since, έφ’ ω, he himself has already been grasped by the Perfect One, Christ.

In general, he never fixes his attention on his own progress in Christian development. Like one running in the arena, he looks only ahead, does not turn back, and runs to receive the reward prepared for the victors.

The force of the thought lies in suffering together with Christ the Lord. The Lord’s death on the Cross replaced all the Old Testament sacrifices and all rites of justification. It alone replaces all sacrifices.

Whoever enters into suffering with the Lord appropriates to himself the power of His death on the Cross. By this one act he accomplishes what all the sacrifices together provide: he appropriates complete justification before the face of divine righteousness.

"That I may know Him," that is, the Lord Jesus Christ. By faith we know that "He is God and Creator of all, and He assumed our nature, accomplishing our salvation."

Here the knowledge of the Person of Jesus Christ is meant, His God-manhood, with all that touches upon it. It includes the pre-eternal determination of our salvation in Him and the ordering of the world according to the idea of this determination.

It includes the promises concerning Him after the fall, the preparation of the human race to receive Him, and His appearing in the flesh. It includes His accomplishment of our salvation, His death on the Cross, Resurrection, and Ascension.

We know all this from the Symbol of Faith from our earliest days. Yet to know it fully and substantially is beyond the powers and life granted to us. It is an inexhaustible object of knowledge for all eternity.

"And the power of His Resurrection." From all the subjects of knowledge concerning the Lord, the holy Apostle singles out the comprehension of the power of His Resurrection and of communion in His sufferings.

The power of Christ’s Resurrection has not yet been revealed. We know the act of Resurrection, but its significance in the system of being is hidden from us.

If the Risen One is God, and the human nature raised in Him is the center of all creation, then the power of Christ’s Resurrection, falling first upon humanity, must through it descend into all realms of being.

How all this is remains hidden, for humanity still awaits the resurrection and has not yet partaken of it. When this resurrection is accomplished, then the significance of Christ’s Resurrection will appear in all its majesty, and in all creation.

Until then, creation also waits and groans for freedom from corruption. We know more closely the moral power of Christ’s Resurrection.

It is the first chapter in Christian convictions, and its light illumines the whole realm of Christian knowledge. It points to the final goal of Christian hopes, and its glory is the awakener of energy in every manifestation of Christian activity.

The contemplator of the Resurrection, who comprehends its power according to his measure, burns in that same measure with faith and zeal for life according to faith.

"And the communion of His sufferings." It was fitting for Christ the Lord to suffer in order to enter into His glory, which was manifested in the Resurrection. After this, as an inseparable consequence, followed the Ascension and sitting at the right hand of the Father.

There the risen Lord sits enthroned. Around Him there are gathered all His faithful servants, according to His word, in an anticipatory communion in His glory.

But as the Lord entered His glory through suffering and the Cross, so all who ascend to Him enter communion in His glory only by passing through a path of sufferings like His.

These sufferings make them sharers in His sufferings and open to them the path there, where the Lord entered by the way of the Cross.

As they did, so must all. Saint Paul interpreted and showed this path in himself and by himself.

Thus the first essential trait in active Christianity, or what is the same, in the work of salvation, or again, in justification by faith, of which the Apostle speaks, is communion in the sufferings of Christ.

More simply, one may say this: the Lord acquired salvation for you by sufferings. If you wish to receive your salvation from Him and appropriate it to yourself, suffer together with the Lord.

One may suffer voluntarily or involuntarily, but without sufferings there is no salvation. How then is this done? "Being conformed to His death."

Chrysostom says on these words: "He says, being conformed to His death, that is, participating in it. For as He suffered from men, so do I.

"This is why the Apostle said, being conformed. Elsewhere he says, I fill up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ in my flesh (Col 1:24).

"That is, my persecutions and sufferings constitute this image of His death. For the Apostle was not seeking his own benefit, but the benefit of many.

"Therefore persecutions, afflictions, and straitened circumstances should not only fail to trouble you, but should even gladden you. Through them we are conformed to the death of Jesus Christ.

"And, so to speak, we portray Him in ourselves, as the Apostle says elsewhere: always carrying in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus (2 Cor 4:10).

"And this comes from faith. We believe that Christ rose and after the Resurrection possesses great power. Therefore we go by the same path by which He went.

"That is, we become His brothers in this also, and, so to speak, we become Christs in this also. O how great is the dignity of sufferings!"

This is one kind of suffering together with Him: through outward afflictions and privations for the sake of faith in the Lord.

Another kind of suffering with Him is given by the struggle with passions and desires. Of this the Apostle says elsewhere, "Those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires" (Gal 5:24).

And again, "I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest I should become disqualified" (cf. 1 Cor 9:27).

By this are meant all acts of self-mortification, voluntary outward privations, and merciless self-compulsion toward every good. It also means self-opposition at every impulse toward evil.

In all this there is no less pain than in outward, involuntary sufferings. Therefore here also, in the full sense, there is suffering together with the Lord, conformed to His death.

Holy Baptism, in which we are buried with the Lord into death, makes us partakers of the death of Christ the Lord (see Rom 6). This is accomplished mystically. But for what reason?

For this reason: the one being baptized, as he approaches the Lord, gives a vow to be faithful to Him even to the laying down of his life.

This resolve is a dedication of oneself to death for the sake of the Lord. Therefore it is a direct union with His death. Upon this resolve the grace that regenerates descends.

Then what is laid here in the resolve of the will is afterward actualized through the whole life. Outward sufferings do not always come, but the inward painful struggle with the passions for the sake of the Lord’s commandments is always present.

By this path, the one who once for all died in Baptism for the sake of the Lord then dies for Him, for His will, and for His holy commandments through his whole life.

The life of a true Christian is the way of the Cross. This is how he is conformed to the Lord’s death.

Chrysostom also speaks of this manner of being crucified with the Lord, but his word has been recorded somewhat obscurely.