but what things were gain to me these I counted, on account of Christ, loss.
Paul had just listed the credentials that once made him one of the most respected religious men alive: his birth, his tribe, his training, his zeal, and a blameless record under the law. In one line he moves the whole list into the loss column. What could be worth such a trade?
The items Paul crossed out were not vices. They were advantages any devout person would have envied. One writer explains what changed their value.
All these things were gain to him as a natural man. They would have given him a great place among men. But the moment he saw Christ in glory, he discovered something else. Despite all his religious advantages, he was the chief of sinners, and had come short of the glory of God. He also saw that all blessing depended on Christ and His work. So from then on he counted the things that were gain to him as a natural man as loss for Christ. He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and as to the righteousness that is in the law he was blameless. To trust in that any longer would have been to set aside Christ's work by his own works, and to rejoice in himself rather than in Christ.
Christ deals with sins by His sacrifice. What Paul throws away here is something else.
One thing alone had changed it all — he had seen a glorified Christ. Everything he had in the flesh was loss to him from then on. It would place something between him and the Christ of his faith and his desire — the Christ whom he knew. And notice: what he rejects here is not the sins of the flesh, which Christ atones for and abolishes. It is the righteousness of the flesh... The surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus his Lord had eclipsed everything, and turned everything that was not Christ into loss. The stars, as well as the darkness of night, disappear before the sun.
One writer works from an older translation, where Paul's word for gain is plural. His assets are many; what they add up to is one thing.
Notice that "gains" is plural, but "loss" is singular: just one loss, one deprivation — not merely a worthless thing, but a ruinous one. So Paul came to view all these great assets of his. These "gains" were not simply one great loss; they were ruinous. If he held on to them, he would lose his own soul.
Someone might dismiss this as the enthusiasm of a new convert. Paul was still counting the same way at the moment he wrote this letter.
So what did the apostle do with this whole list of advantages in the flesh? It was laid in the grave of Christ. "But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ." Was this what the apostle felt, did, and suffered when he first came to know Christ? It was also what he carried right up to the moment of writing to the Philippians, as strongly as ever. "Indeed," he said, "I count everything as loss."
Deciding something is worthless is one thing. Watching it go is another. Paul did both, and the first made the second bearable.
This counting of all things as loss was not just an attitude of his mind. He adds, "For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things." It is one thing to count all things as loss. It is quite another to really suffer the loss of it all. The apostle knew both. He was not shaken when he lost everything, because he had already counted everything as loss. And in Christ he had infinite gain, compared with whom all else is rubbish.
This is not self-denial done to earn something. The order matters.
When the heart has found its rest in Christ and is satisfied, it finds it easy to turn down what does not suit Him. We do not refuse in order to gain something; we refuse because we already have Christ. This is the lesson of Philippians 3:7-8.
- Sight — one sight of Christ in glory changed the whole valuation. Everything that was not Christ became loss, the way stars vanish before the sun.
- Sum — many gains, but one loss. His assets added up to a single ruinous deprivation, and holding them would have cost him his soul.
- Substitution — Paul throws away his righteousness here, not his sins. Trusting his own record would set aside Christ's work by his own works.
- Sustained — this was no first flush of enthusiasm. As he wrote this letter he was still counting the same way, with the whole list laid in Christ's grave.
- Satisfied — he could refuse the rest because he already had Christ. When he truly lost it all, he was not shaken. He had written it off long before.
But surely I count also all things to be loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, on account of whom I have suffered the loss of all, and count them to be filth, that I may gain Christ;
Paul lists every credential that once made him somebody — his birth, his tribe, his religion. He writes the whole list off as loss, and the verse asks two questions: what is Christ worth to me, and does that verdict still hold years later?
Verse 7 looked back: "I counted." Verse 8 changes both the tense and the scope.
It was not enough to say, "I counted these things loss long ago" — the national and religious privileges we have been speaking of. Not only did I count them loss when I was first converted; I still count them so. And not only these things — I count all things loss. My social standing, my family, my wealth, my all: all loss, for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
That present tense is the hard part, because a first decision is easier than a lasting one.
Suppose a man has just been saved. What does he think about the world? That it has deceived him. Leave him for a while, and his family twines around him, and soon he begins to seek the things of the world. Paul saw Christ on the way to Damascus. He gives up his importance, his standing as a Pharisee, his teaching, everything else, and counts it all as loss that he may win Him. He says "count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ" — present tense, not "counted," which would be far easier.
The phrase is not a compliment about a superior grade of knowledge.
He does not count all things loss because this knowledge ranks higher than other knowledge. He counts them loss because this knowledge surpasses everything else. And the more of that knowledge he gained, the more he longed for more of it; so when we get to verse 10, we hear him cry: "That I may know Him!"
One writer draws the line between knowing what Christ has done and knowing Christ Himself.
It is one thing to know the value of His work, and another to know Himself... I mean a heart acquaintance, a deep, personal intimacy with the Lord; that you should get to know Him as your own. Near the end of his life Paul could say, "I know whom I have believed." That was no shallow or second-hand knowledge, picked up from reports or writings. It came from years of companionship, in summer or winter, when people praised him and when they did not.
The wording here is personal.
Notice that Paul does not say "our Lord." No, it is "my Lord." Outside this letter Paul does not often speak this way, but in this short letter we find it three times: 1:3; 3:8; and 4:19. There is a warmth, a passion here, that we perhaps see nowhere else... I wonder, can we truthfully say, as shown in our daily walk: "my Lord"?
"All things" was not an abstraction. Paul had a long list of things to lose.
As to his associations he was "of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee." He was a citizen of "no obscure city." He was born free — a position many wanted. He had studied under Gamaliel, "a teacher of the law held in honor by all the people." Truly a record the flesh could be proud of! Yet it was all this, and more — "all things" — which he had counted and still counted as loss.
The word translated "rubbish" is blunt. One writer traces it to words meaning "to cast to the dogs," and to an old papyrus describing bones thrown out to the dogs (G C Willis). If that is what Paul's past is worth, talk of heroic self-denial misses the point.
When Paul viewed his old advantages in the light of Christ and of the glory he was heading for, he counted them as rubbish. Who would ever think the earth at its best worth looking back on, when they have the glory before their eyes? Who would call taking out the rubbish a great sacrifice?
Paul already belonged to Christ, so the phrase needs care. One writer says it looks forward, not to a second-stage experience.
Did he not have Christ already? He did. He was in Him. The apostle does not mean that he reaches out, as some teach, for a "deeper life" experience or something like it. He had perfect assurance of his standing before God in Christ. His wish to win Christ, to gain Christ, is his longing to have Christ in glory in actual fact. Like a runner who has no eyes for his surroundings but keeps his eye on the goal, the believer looks to the glorified Christ and presses forward.
- Then — at conversion Paul counted his privileges loss. Verse 8 calls that reckoning too small and widens it to "all things."
- Now — the tense is present. Paul still counts, years later. A good start is common; a lasting verdict is rare.
- Why — not a higher grade of knowledge, but knowledge that surpasses everything. It grows into one cry: "That I may know Him!"
- Whose — "my Lord," not "our Lord": personal possession, the warmth found three times in this short letter.
- Worth — he calls what he dropped rubbish, fit for the dogs. No one calls taking out the rubbish a sacrifice. Ahead lies Christ Himself in glory.