Philippians 3:12Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Thus either the Apostle expresses this here, or the following: if I am counted worthy to attain the glorious resurrection joined with hope, then I shall attain Christ’s Resurrection.

If I complete all the contests, then I shall also attain His Resurrection and rise with glory. For now, he says, I am not yet worthy. "I press on, if I may attain."

My life is still in contests. I am still far from the goal. I am not yet near the prizes. I am still running. I am still pursuing.

He did not say, I run, but, "I press on," and rightly so. You know with what intensity the pursuer presses forward. He looks at no one.

With great effort he pushes aside all who hinder him. He directs mind, eyes, strength, soul, and body to one thing, having nothing else in view except the prize.

If Paul, who pursued in this way and suffered so much, still says, "if I may attain," what shall we say, who lie on our side?

Then, wishing to show that this is an obligation, the Apostle says, "because Christ Jesus has laid hold of me."

I was, he says, among those perishing. I was drowning. I was close to destruction. But God saved me, for He pursues those fleeing from Him with great swiftness.

The Apostle expresses all this. By the words "He laid hold of me," he indicated God’s zeal in wishing to overtake us, our great aversion from Him, our wandering, and the fact that we had fled from Him.

It is worthy of tears that we have all returned again to our former condition and have become great debtors. Yet none of us grieves over this. No one weeps. No one groans.

Do not think that I say this in pretense. As we withdrew from God before Christ’s coming, so we withdraw from Him even now.

One can withdraw from God not by place, since He is everywhere present, but by deeds. Hear how the prophet says that one cannot withdraw from Him by place: "Where shall I go from Your Spirit? And from Your presence where shall I flee?" (Ps 138:7).

How then can one flee from God? In the same way that one can be far from Him, and in the same way that one can withdraw from Him.

"Those who remove themselves from You shall perish" (Ps 72:27). And again, "Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God" (Is 59:2).

How does this withdrawal from God take place? How does this separation occur? By disposition and soul. By place it is impossible. Who can flee from the One who is everywhere present?

Only the sinner flees from Him. Scripture also says this: "The wicked flee when no one pursues" (Prov 28:1).

We flee swiftly from God, although He always pursues us. The Apostle was striving to draw near to Him, but we strive to withdraw from Him.

Is this not worthy of lamentation? Is it not worthy of tears? Where are you fleeing, poor and wretched man? Where are you fleeing from your life and salvation?

If you flee from God, in whom will you have refuge? If you flee from the light, how will you see? If you flee from life, how will you live afterward?

Let us rather flee from the enemy of our salvation. When we sin, we flee from God. We go away. We withdraw from Him into a foreign land.

We become like that squanderer of his father’s possessions, who went away into a foreign country, wasted all his father’s property, and suffered hunger.

We too have a paternal estate. What is it? God freed us from sins and granted us power and strength for the practice of virtue. He granted us zeal and patience. In Baptism He granted us the Holy Spirit.

If we squander this, then afterward we shall suffer hunger. It is the same with the sick while they suffer from fever and from corrupted humors.

They can neither rise, nor occupy themselves with anything, nor act. But if someone frees them from sickness and restores health to them, and they still do nothing, this comes from their own negligence.

Exactly so it is with us. We were possessed by a cruel disease, a violent fever. We lay not on a bed, but in evil itself.

We were sunk in impiety as in dung, covered with wounds, stinking, filthy, exhausted, and more like statues than human beings. Evil demons surrounded us, and the prince of this world mocked and attacked us.

The Only-begotten Son of God came to us and stretched forth the rays of His presence. Immediately He drove away the darkness.

The King came to us, He who sits on the Father’s throne, leaving the Father’s throne. When I say "leaving," do not imagine a change of place, for He fills heaven and earth.

I say this only with respect to the divine economy. He came to an enemy who hated Him, turned away from Him, could not bear to see Him, and blasphemed Him daily.

He saw the enemy lying in dung, eaten by worms, possessed by fever and hunger, and subjected to every kind of disease.

Fever tormented him: this is evil desire. He suffered inflammation: this is pride. A so-called wolfish hunger tormented him: this is covetousness.

He had rotten wounds: this is fornication. He had blindness of eyes: this is idolatry. He had deafness and derangement of mind: this is the worship of stones and trees and converse with them.

He also had great deformity: this is impiety, something repulsive and a most grievous sickness.

He saw that we spoke still worse than the demon-possessed, calling wood and stone God. He saw us in such impiety, and He did not loathe us.

He was not grieved with disgust. He did not turn away. He did not hate us. Since He is Master, He did not hate His own creation.

But what does He do? As the best Physician, He prepares precious medicines and Himself first tastes them. He first practiced virtue, and in this way taught us.

As the first medicine, a kind of antidote, He gave us the laver, by which we were freed from every evil. All at once everything passed away.

The inflammation ended, the fever ceased, and the rotten wounds dried up. Everything that comes from covetousness, anger, and every other evil was destroyed by the Spirit.

The eyes were opened, the hearing was opened, and the tongue began to speak well. The soul received strength. The body received beauty and such a bloom as befits a son of God born by the grace of the Spirit.

It received such glory as befits a royal son newly born and brought up in purple.

O what nobility has been granted to us, and yet we remain ungrateful to Him who loved us so! We were born, raised, and benefited. Why then do we again withdraw from our Benefactor?

He who did all this will certainly also give strength. Otherwise, being subject to sickness, we could not endure it if He did not give us strength.

He granted us forgiveness of sins, and we rejected this gift. He granted us wealth, and we squandered it and wasted everything.

He granted us strength, and we exhausted it. He granted us grace, and we quenched it. How? We spent it on what was not proper and used it for what was entirely useless.

This is what destroyed us. Worst of all, while we are in a foreign land and feed on husks, we do not say, Let us return to the Father and say, "We have sinned against heaven and before You" (Lk 15:18).

Yet we have a Father who loves us so tenderly and greatly desires our return. If only we would abandon impiety, if only we would return to Him, He will not then reproach us for our former sins.

Only let us abandon them. Return is already a sufficient justification. What am I saying, He will not reproach? He not only does not reproach us Himself, but if another reproaches us, He stops his mouth.

He does this even if the reprover is well-intentioned. Therefore let us return. How long shall we remain far from Him?

Let us feel our dishonor. Let us feel our poverty. Impiety makes us swine. Impiety torments the soul with hunger.

Let us enter again into ourselves, come to our senses, and return to our former nobility, that we may be counted worthy of the good things to come, by the grace and love for mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ.

With Him, to the Father and the Holy Spirit be glory, dominion, and honor, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

He said "I press on" with great expressiveness. One who presses on pays attention to nothing except that toward which he presses.

He lets everything else pass from sight, even what is most precious and most necessary. So we also must hasten, paying no attention to any obstacles.

Rather, he calls his own death the end of the course and of the struggles. For he says, "I am already being poured out, and the time of my departure is at hand" (2 Tim 4:6).

Do you see that he did not say, "I am resting," but, "I am already being poured out"?

By such words and deeds he shows everyone that until the very release from the body and death, we must offer repentance to Christ the heavenly King.

With Him, to the Father together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, honor, and worship, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Therefore he says: 'Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected, but I press on, that I may lay hold.' A little later he says: 'Therefore, as many of us as are perfect, let us be thus minded' (Phil 3:12, 3:15).

Now, he says, I have not yet attained this. 'But I press on, if perhaps I may lay hold.'

My life is still in struggles. I am still far from the goal and not yet near the rewards."

"He did not say, 'I run,' but, 'I press on,' and rightly so.

You know with what effort the one pursuing in the arena strives. He looks at no one and thrusts away all who hinder him with great intensity.

He directs mind, eyes, strength, soul, and body toward one thing. He has nothing else in view except the final goal.

If Paul, who pressed on in this way and suffered so much, still says, 'if I may lay hold,' what can we say, lying on our side?

Then, wishing to show that this is an obligation, the Apostle says: 'that for which I also was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.'

With this the Apostle expressed both God's zeal in wishing to lay hold of us and our aversion from Him.

I was among those perishing, but God saved me. For He pursues us as we flee from Him, and He does so with great swiftness."

"I do not consider myself to have laid hold, but I think of only one thing, to stretch forward.

This is what his words mean: forgetting what lies behind and stretching forward to what lies ahead, I press toward the goal.

See how clearly he showed what moved him to stretch forward.

For one who thinks he is perfect and lacks nothing for the fullness of virtue ceases to strive, as though he had attained everything.

By contrast, one who thinks he is still far from the goal never ceases striving toward it."

"He who gives the reward dwells in heaven. See what a distance there is! It must be run.

Train your feet to step firmly. Never set foot on slippery things.

Look upward, where the reward is. The very sight of the reward strengthens resolve.

The fear of torments does not allow one to feel weariness, and it makes the long road seem short.

What is this reward? Not a palm branch, but what? The Kingdom of Heaven, eternal rest, glory with Christ, and countless blessings that cannot be expressed in words."

"Adapting himself to the customs of the arena, the Apostle says: I press toward the mark for such a reward, or prize.

What is the reward? The high calling of God. And what is this? The Kingdom of Heaven.

What is the mark? Spiritual perfection, consisting in purification from sin and passions through the struggle of self-mortification and involuntary sorrows.

For nothing unclean shall enter there. For the sake of participation in Christ's sufferings, grace overshadows the one who has participated.

He becomes like metal set aflame. To him belong the glorious resurrection and the Kingdom of Heaven" (Bishop Theophan).

I keep pressing on and on, "if indeed I may lay hold." "If indeed I may lay hold" does not signify doubt, but points to the aim, in the sense, "so that I may attain."

Or it may be taken thus: the measure of our perfection is exceedingly great, while our life is short.

Therefore I strive with all my strength, to see whether in this short interval I may reach the final limits of the perfection appointed for us.

"For which I also was laid hold of by Christ Jesus." "For which" means on what condition, with what proposal, and in what hopes and prospects.

The Lord Jesus Christ laid hold of him on the road to Damascus with the purpose of making him the Apostle to the Gentiles.

But the Apostle does not have this in mind when he says, "for which I also was laid hold of." He means the common Christian aim toward which every Christian must strive.

He speaks as if saying: I press on to attain that to which I was called by the Lord as a Christian, together with all Christians.

Saint Paul fixes his attention on his spiritual and moral side, not on his apostolic calling.

He stands where he stood when he said: lest somehow, having preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.

Since he does not state directly what he is striving to attain, his words may be paraphrased so: I strive to attain the ideal of Christian spiritual and moral perfection.

There is no end to this, for the Lord says: "Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (cf. Mt 5:48).

Closer to us: whoever, having been laid hold of by the Lord, wishes to follow Him, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Him (cf. Mk 8:34).

Only by this path do men reach the place where the Lord is, sitting at the right hand of God.

By "I press on" the Apostle can mean nothing other than an increase of the ascetic labors of self-denial.

He does this with a view to the fuller purification and perfection of his nature, so that through this he may prove worthy of the glorious resurrection, as the course of the discourse shows.

Chrysostom says of this: "What do the words, 'if I may lay hold,' mean? They mean: may I not attain His resurrection, if I could suffer as much?

If I could become like Him, if I could be made conformable to Him? Thus Christ suffered much, was spat upon, struck on the face, scourged, and finally died.

And this is the arena. Through all this His resurrection must be attained by all His athletes.

The Apostle speaks as if saying: if I complete all the contests, I shall attain His resurrection and rise with glory.

Now, he says, I am not yet worthy of this. But I press on, if indeed I may lay hold. My life is still in contests.

I am still far from the goal, still not near the prizes. I am still running. I am still pressing on.

He did not say, 'I run,' but, 'I press on,' and rightly so. For you know with what exertion one presses on in the races.

He looks at no one. With great intensity he thrusts aside all obstacles. He directs mind, eyes, strength, soul, and body toward one thing.

He has nothing else in view except the final marker. If Paul, who presses on in this way and has suffered so much, still says, 'if I may lay hold,' what shall we say, who lie on our side?

Then, wishing to show that this is an obligation, the Apostle says: 'for which I also was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.' He was called for this, to struggle so, striving toward perfection.

Fix your attention on the phrase, 'I was laid hold of.' By it the Apostle expressed both God's zeal in wishing to lay hold of us and our great aversion from Him.

He also expressed our wandering and the fact that we withdrew from Him.

He speaks as if saying: I was among those who were perishing, I was drowning, I was close to destruction. But God saved me.

For He pursues us as we flee from Him, and He does so with great swiftness."

Theodoret writes similarly: "He first laid hold of me and caught me in the net. I fled from Him and was greatly averse to Him.

But He laid hold of me as I fled. Therefore I pursue after Him, wishing to overtake Him, so that I may not be deprived of salvation."