whose end [is] destruction, whose god [is] the belly, and [their] glory in their shame, who mind earthly things)
Paul weeps as he writes this, because he is not describing outsiders but people who profess Christ. Four short phrases sketch a whole way of life: its end, its true god, its upside-down values, and the earthbound mind behind it all.
The charge in the previous verse sets the tone. These people were not against Christ; they were against His cross.
He does not say they are the enemies of Christ; they profess to be His friends. But they hate the cross. The cross is the point and power of separation from all that is of man and the world — and this they would not have.
Another writer explains what that cross has done:
They are enemies of the cross of Christ. Not perhaps of His death, but of His cross. Before God, that cross has put the sentence of death on man, on his wisdom and his glory.
Commentators differ over whether these people were true believers. Some take the word "destruction" as settling the question:
Were these real believers? The words "their end is destruction" answer this question. They could not be true children of God. They were people who had professed Christianity, holding a form of godliness while denying its power (2 Tim. 3:5).
Others hold that Paul judges only the outward course and says nothing about the state of their souls. That is why the warning reaches us too:
People often ask here, "Is he speaking only of those who profess to be Christians?" But that is just where the passage is silent. It affirms nothing of the real relations of their souls with God. Paul judges by their outward course... What have our minds been on today? Minding earthly things is the road to destruction. If the Lord's beloved ones get on that road, they will be delivered out of it before it reaches its fearful end.
One writer traces how appetite comes to rule:
Their hearts were set on earthly things. Earthly things cannot satisfy, and so their belly became their god. Their inward craving became their master, and made them slave away in its service.
It would be a mistake to limit this to food and drink. The expression is wider:
The "belly-service" mentioned here stands for more than simply satisfying the appetite. It is true that overeating and drunkenness are among the evil things the Lord has warned all His disciples against. But the phrase means self-pleasing in all its forms, physical and religious. Here and elsewhere it stands in contrast to the service of God and of Christ.
Boasting in what should shame them shows a conscience that no longer works:
They gloried in that which was their shame. They had no spiritual sensibilities at all. Everything in their minds was inverted. To them light was darkness and darkness light: glory was shame and shame was glory.
"Earthly" here is not about where a person lives but about what he wants:
Who mind earthly things. This last item gives its character to the whole description... They are the things that a man in his natural state wants and takes an interest in, as someone who lives on earth. So, under another name, they are things of the flesh as opposed to spiritual things — our own things instead of the things of Jesus Christ.
That definition turns the verse back on us:
Don't our homes, our furnishings, our cars and our way of life agree to an appalling extent with this description? And perhaps the saddest part is that we glory in them, when they are in reality our shame. If we were more truly joint-imitators of the apostle, we too would weep.
Paul does not leave the warning hanging. He sets a different belonging beside it.
This drew tears from the apostle even in the middle of his joy. But he turns it to practical profit, calling on the saints to take heed. Let us watch against the first signs of self-indulgence or of allowing earthliness. "Our citizenship is in heaven" — our real association is with Him who is there... We are not simply going there; we belong to heaven now.
- Cross refused. The quarrel is not with Christ but with His cross. That cross separates a person from all that is of man and the world.
- Appetite crowned. Earthly things never satisfy, so the craving becomes master. Self-pleasing in every form, physical or religious, takes the place of serving God.
- Values inverted. Refuse the cross and let appetite rule, and the conscience flips. What should bring shame becomes the boast.
- Mind earthbound. "Earthly things" are whatever a person in his natural state wants as someone living on earth. That phrase gives the whole description its character.
- End reached. That road ends in destruction. The contrast is a citizenship in heaven that we hold now, not one we are only heading toward.
for *our* commonwealth has its existence in [the] heavens, from which also we await the Lord Jesus Christ [as] Saviour,
Paul has just wept over people whose minds are set on earthly things (v.19). Now he names the opposite. The verse answers two questions: where a believer belongs, and who a believer is waiting for.
Older translations rendered the Greek word politeuma as "conversation," which misleads modern readers. One reference work traces the word through the Bible:
This word is not used in Scripture in the sense of familiar talk. In the Old Testament it refers to the walk... In the New Testament the word anastrophē has a similar sense of "walk, conduct, behaviour," and so it reads in every other passage except Philippians 1:27 and Philippians 3:20. There the word is politeuma, "citizenship," which for the Christian is in heaven, separating him from citizenship on earth and its politics.
To the first readers this was not a dry legal term. It was the word for the thing a person built his whole life around:
It is "citizenship." To our minds that is a cold political thing. To a Greek it was everything. His citizenship came before wife, children or any other interest in life. The Spirit can take up this word to bring out a truth that matters so much to us: everything that shapes the Christian's life morally, in its deepest springs, is in heaven now. What a wonderful contrast for us who once belonged to earth! Our new relationships, interests, objects, joys and hopes are found in heaven!
Heaven is not only where believers are going. It is where they belong now.
"For our conversation (citizenship) is in heaven"; our real association is with Him who is there. Whatever we might have been as citizens of the earth, it is at an end now and forever. We belong to Christ on high. It is not merely that we are going there, but we belong to heaven now... We are now heavenly, and then we shall be declared and proved to be so.
Paul ties this verse straight back to the people he wept over:
Nothing is more important than to heed the moral association of things in the mind of God. For example, in Philippians 3:19, those "who mind earthly things" are in the position of "the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame!" This is God's moral connection of things. The true contrast to it is to have "our conversation in heaven, from where we also look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ."
Lose sight of heaven, and the drift toward earthly things begins:
This is the great safeguard against falling away! "Where the treasure is, there the heart will be also." The servant who says in his heart, "My lord delays his coming," begins to indulge himself and oppress his fellows. It is the same here. When the Church stops realizing that HEAVEN is the place of its inheritance, its privileges and its titles, and that the coming down of the Saviour from heaven is its hope, then its own things — earthly things — become its object.
The title surprises: believers already know Christ as Saviour. So why wait for Him in that character?
When we first came to know the Lord Jesus Christ, we knew Him "as Saviour." So what does it mean that now "we eagerly await Him as Saviour"? When we first learned to know Him, we knew Him as Saviour of our souls — the Saviour who bore our sins. Now we eagerly await Him as Saviour of our bodies: "we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies" (Romans 8:23). It is the very same word we have in Philippians 3:20: "eagerly await," or "wait for patiently and persistently."
He is coming as Judge too, but that is not how believers wait for Him:
It is true that He is coming as the Judge, but we do not look for Him in that character. For us it is written, "We look for the Saviour… who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body" (Phil. 3:20-21).
The verse answers people who insist a Christian's business is fixing this world:
If our commonwealth exists in the heavens, then it is "from where we also look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ." People may tell us we ought to spend our time improving things down here. But we are simply waiting for Christ to come and take us away from the things down here.
- Citizens. Politeuma means citizenship, not talk. It names where you belong, and for the Christian that place is heaven.
- Already. The verse is present tense. Believers do not just travel toward heaven; they belong to it now, and one day that will be plain.
- Rival. Paul sets this against minding earthly things. Forget where you belong, and the heart slides back to earthly objects.
- Awaited. The One we wait for comes as Saviour, not as Judge. The waiting is eager, patient and persistent.
- Finished. What remains for Him to save is the body; then the salvation begun in the soul is complete.