THE SURPASSING WORTH
Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ. Phil. 3:8, R.S.V.
Christian history is filled with moving chronicles of people who have given up almost everything in order to become Christians. Members of royalty have given up their rights to the throne; the wealthy have given up their palaces; children have been disowned by their parents; and for more than nineteen hundred years, many have given up life itself.
When Paul speaks of having "suffered the loss of all things" in exchange for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, we readily start a mental listing of what he might have given up. His privileges as a Pharisee? Perhaps a family inheritance? Some speculate he even forfeited his marriage, since his wife may not have followed him into Christianity.
We may be surprised to learn, however, that in the context of today's passage, this isn't the type of "giving up" that Paul is speaking about. He was willing to cast aside as worthless garbage, not only money and prestige but all the hoped-for gain that his former style of religious experience had promised him. As a sinner before God, he was laying aside as worthless every prop, every merit, every trusted spiritual advantage that all of his well-honed religious zeal had supposed to give him. For years he had learned to trust these well-done works. To step away from dependence upon them would be far more traumatic than a child's first bicycle ride without his training wheels.
But Paul had found something of surpassing worth: that the essential genius of Christianity does not center in man's performance, but in union with a Person. And he discovered that the whole premise of religion being man's endeavors to impress or appease God, that God might change toward man, must be thrown on the dung-heap. In knowing Jesus Christ, he learned that God Himself is already utterly devoted to man, that religion is Jesus' endeavor to get man to change toward God! This relationship of loving trust with one's Creator--which Paul calls "faith"--is itself man's rightful condition. This is "righteousness by faith," infinitely preferred to the supposed righteousness of man's works done to try to establish that relationship.
No wonder Paul could say, "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice" (Phil. 4:4, R.S.V.).
Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ. Phil. 3:8, R.S.V.
Christian history is filled with moving chronicles of people who have given up almost everything in order to become Christians. Members of royalty have given up their rights to the throne; the wealthy have given up their palaces; children have been disowned by their parents; and for more than nineteen hundred years, many have given up life itself.
When Paul speaks of having "suffered the loss of all things" in exchange for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, we readily start a mental listing of what he might have given up. His privileges as a Pharisee? Perhaps a family inheritance? Some speculate he even forfeited his marriage, since his wife may not have followed him into Christianity.
We may be surprised to learn, however, that in the context of today's passage, this isn't the type of "giving up" that Paul is speaking about. He was willing to cast aside as worthless garbage, not only money and prestige but all the hoped-for gain that his former style of religious experience had promised him. As a sinner before God, he was laying aside as worthless every prop, every merit, every trusted spiritual advantage that all of his well-honed religious zeal had supposed to give him. For years he had learned to trust these well-done works. To step away from dependence upon them would be far more traumatic than a child's first bicycle ride without his training wheels.
But Paul had found something of surpassing worth: that the essential genius of Christianity does not center in man's performance, but in union with a Person. And he discovered that the whole premise of religion being man's endeavors to impress or appease God, that God might change toward man, must be thrown on the dung-heap. In knowing Jesus Christ, he learned that God Himself is already utterly devoted to man, that religion is Jesus' endeavor to get man to change toward God! This relationship of loving trust with one's Creator--which Paul calls "faith"--is itself man's rightful condition. This is "righteousness by faith," infinitely preferred to the supposed righteousness of man's works done to try to establish that relationship.
No wonder Paul could say, "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice" (Phil. 4:4, R.S.V.).
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