Philippians 3:9Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

What righteousness is this? It is the righteousness that comes from faith in God, that is, the righteousness given by God. This is the righteousness of God. It is wholly God's gift.

God's gift is far superior to small good works performed by our own effort.

And what is faith? "By faith," he says, "that I may know Him" (Phil 3:10). Therefore knowledge of God is acquired by faith, and without faith it is impossible to know Him.

How so? One must know the power of His resurrection by faith. What reasoning, indeed, will persuade us of the resurrection? None, but faith alone.

If Christ's resurrection in the flesh is known by faith, then by what reasonings can the birth of God the Word be comprehended? For the resurrection is less than the birth. Why? Because there were many examples of resurrection, but not one example of such a birth.

Before Christ, many dead had risen, though after rising they died again. But no one had ever been born of a virgin. Therefore, if what is less than the birth according to the flesh must be grasped by faith, how can what is far greater, infinitely and incomparably greater, be grasped by reasoning?

This is what constitutes righteousness. One must believe that this could be, but how it could be is impossible to imagine.

Communion in the sufferings also depends on faith. How? If we did not believe, we would not suffer. If we did not believe that by suffering with Christ we shall also reign with Him, we would not endure sufferings.

Therefore both the birth and the resurrection are grasped by faith. Do you see that faith is needed not simply, but faith joined to works?

The one who especially believes that Christ has risen is he who boldly goes into dangers. He has communion in His sufferings, because he has communion with the risen One, with Him who lives.

For this reason the Apostle said, "And be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection of the dead" (Phil 3:9-11).

This attainment of Christ, and with it the righteousness not given by outward fulfillment of the Old Testament law, is received inwardly and spiritually from Christ. It is received through faith in His redemptive sacrifice of sufferings for men, for their justification before the Father.

"Faith in Jesus Christ gives remission of all sins. By 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 came to possess it. Everyone must also come to possess it. Do not rely on your visibly performed deeds. Seek this inward grace, holiness formed in the spirit, for in it is everything. 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 for himself the power of His death on the Cross and full justification before the face of divine righteousness."

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

"One kind of suffering with Him comes 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."

"One can attain the glorious resurrection only through suffering with the Lord."

"When all the passions are driven out, good dispositions are established in their place, and the whole soul comes alive, as if rising from the dead. Whoever rises in this way will undoubtedly be deemed 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 alive 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 himself says that he is not yet certain of attaining glory (cf. 1 Cor 10:12).

Defining all this as the knowledge of Christ, our recent interpreter says: "This knowledge is, of course, not dead and speculative. It is such as cannot be conceived without being in the One known, knowledge through the appropriation of Christ to oneself. It comes through communion with Him, with His sufferings, death, and resurrection, and 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)."

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.

Righteousness from the law is this: you have performed a sacrifice, and you are righteous. You have made a washing, and you are clean.

You have brought a tithe, kept the Sabbath, fulfilled all else of the same kind, and you have pleased God. You descend from Abraham, and you are a child of God, an heir of the Kingdom.

The Apostle left this legal righteousness, external and material. Instead of it, in Christ Jesus, he received another righteousness, a spiritual and inward one, which is built up in the spirit through faith in Jesus Christ.

Faith in Jesus Christ grants 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 came to possess it. Everyone must also come to possess it.

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

By legal righteousness one may understand, in general, external correctness of conduct. By the righteousness that is through faith in Jesus Christ, one may understand inward purity of feelings and thoughts before the face of God.

When the Apostle sets faith in opposition to legal righteousness, he does not deny the obligation to a righteous life.

He only commands us not to stop at a merely external goodness of life, but to seek inward sanctification by grace, which is given through faith in Jesus Christ.

This is what he means when he says: "and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but" having the righteousness "which is through faith in Jesus Christ, the righteousness from God in faith."

He did not say: and be found in Him with faith instead of legal righteousness. Rather, he says: with righteousness, but such righteousness as the faith of Jesus Christ gives.

This righteousness proceeds from God upon faith, or under the condition of faith.

How this righteousness comes is known. To the penitent who approaches the Lord, sins are forgiven.

To him, as one who has received mercy, the grace of the Holy Spirit is given. This grace teaches him how always to walk holy before God in all things, and gives him strength for it.

Good qualities and good principles are placed in our nature. Guided and moved by them, a man can do much good and appear virtuous.

Yet all this has no value before God until it is sanctified by faith, and until grace comes and remakes everything according to its own spirit.

Chrysostom says that here the Apostle means precisely "that righteousness which comes from faith in God, that is, which is given by God.

Behold the righteousness of God: it is wholly the gift of God. But the gift of God far surpasses the insignificant good works performed by our own effort."

With this, we may suppose, the warning against the Judaizers is finished. The Apostle does not labor to explain their teaching's absurdity in detail.

He exposes it briefly, but powerfully. By his own example he decisively prevents any possibility that the Philippians, who love him so much and are so loved by him, might turn toward them.

His confidence in this shortened his word, for he knew that the Philippians would always be where he was.

Having done this, the Apostle next judged it more necessary and useful to speak at length about the essence of righteousness in Christ: how to be in Him, what to keep in view, and what hopes to nourish.