What does it mean to boast in the Lord?

But the Christian has a just ground of boasting. There is One in whom we may and ought to boast, not self, but the Lord. So said the prophet of old, when the Jews were either glorying in idols or distrustful of Jehovah, who was laying bare their vanity and punishing their departure from Himself. So repeats the apostle now to the saints at Corinth. To glory in the Lord is due to Him and good for us; to glory elsewhere is a danger as well as a delusion. It connects more or less immediately with self; and not he that commends himself is approved, but whom the Lord commends.

How complete the blessing Christ has been made to us! And what a joy that we not only may but ought to boast in Him who has so ordered and given to us! Do pious souls call on us to beware of presumption? It is the apostle, and this on the strength of Jeremiah the prophet, who calls on him that boasts to boast in Jehovah. It is therefore not rash nor wrong, but a hallowed boast. We owe it to Him, and He deserves it of us.

The word translated "rejoice" in these verses is not the same. In v. 1 it is the same word as is rendered "rejoice" in Phil. 4:4, and means spiritual joy. In 3:3 it signifies to glory, or to make our boast in - a word the apostle often uses. For example, it is found in Romans 5:2-3, 11; 1 Cor. 1:31; Galatians 6:14, and in many other places. The examination of the connection of these several scriptures will at once reveal its significance. In Phil. 3:3 Paul has the Jewish teachers in his mind, who prided themselves upon their carnal rites and ordinances; and it is in contrast with all this, which only tended to exalt man, that he says, "We are the circumcision, who … rejoice [make our boast in] Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." In 1 Cor. 1:31 the contrast is with human wisdom and human power, in which man naturally glories. For the Christian - man having been for ever set aside in judgment in the cross of Christ - everything is found in Christ glorified, the Man of God's counsels (v. 30), and hence it is the apostle says, "He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." The reader will find much profit and edification in reviewing the other examples cited. Turning again for a moment to Phil. 3:1 and 4:4, the lesson there is that in the Lord alone is our true spiritual joy to be found, and not only so, but also that it may always be found there, for the exhortation is, "Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice." If we seek our joy in our experiences, or in Christian fellowship, we shall be infallibly disappointed; but, if we turn only to the Lord for it, we shall discover an overflowing fountain, the streams whereof, filling our own hearts, will run over in continual thanksgiving and praise. As another has said, "When through exercise of heart we are weaned from all other springs, His joy remains in all its purity, and our concern for others partakes of this same purity. Nothing, moreover, troubles this joy, because Christ never changes. The better we know Him, the better are we able to enjoy that which is ever enlarging through knowing Him. But He exhorts Christians to rejoice: it is a testimony to the worth of Christ, it is their true portion. Four years in prison chained to a soldier had not hindered his doing it, nor being able to exhort others more at ease than he."

All the foolishness of man, even of the saint, is the occasion of bringing out the wisdom of God; all thoughts are turned into good by Him; not that this is any excuse for our foolishness. There are two things brought out here: first, all that is of man is broken to pieces; secondly, God comes in, and the righteousness of man, his carelessness, sin, everything is thoroughly broken to pieces. No flesh can glory in His presence. Then would He have men not glory at all? Not so. "Let him that glorieth glory in the Lord" And this is perfect in strength, wisdom, holiness; he will never have to be ashamed of that which is perfect, and will never pass away, when everything else does fade away. What a glorious thing for the saint! It seems wonderful for a poor sinner to be able to say he may "glory in the Lord." What a tendency there is in nature to glory in anything else! Man must glory in something; it may even be that he boasts of being the worst of sinners. He may glory in his sins, his wretchedness, anything that attaches to self. When God comes in, there will soon be an end of this, he will hide himself fast enough then, and be ashamed of everything he has gloried in before. The state of man by nature is "without God," even though he may be blessed by Him with all natural things; he would be glad to be out of God's presence if he could, but in one sense he cannot. "If I take the wings of the morning," etc. You cannot fly from His presence; yet you are miserable in it.

(Verse 2). This spirit, that can praise the Lord at all times, will only be found in one who has unshaken confidence in the Lord. So the Psalmist can say, "My soul shall make her boast in the Lord." Wealth, social position, human ability, may fail us; but the Lord can be trusted at all times. Moreover, to glory in the Lord is to take ground on which all the saints can be together. At once, therefore, we read, "the humble shall hear thereof and be glad." An ignorant and unlearned man, like Peter, and a well-born and learned man, like Paul, find themselves on common ground, and on the highest ground, when both can say, "My soul shall make her boast in the Lord." To boast in poverty or ignorance would be mere affectation; to boast in wealth or learning would be mere vanity. It was not Peter that said he was "unlearned and ignorant"; nor was it Paul who said he had "much learning." Others said these things of these believers. Forgetting the things that are behind, they could say, "He that glories, let him glory in the Lord," and, so doing they found themselves together on common ground and are both taken up by the Lord for the highest form of service as Apostles.

'Boast, or glory,7 in Christ Jesus.' Again and again God's saints are called on in this Epistle to be glad and rejoice in the Lord; but the word here used, though it carries in it the additional sense of joyful exaltation, is both different in form and of a weightier force, expressing rather the full utterance of victorious confidence than merely emotional gladness of heart. Such boasting as is here ascribed to the circumcision is a solemn declaration of the reason of their hope who worship God in the Spirit. They occupy a standing and assert a title which lies quite outside the realm of nature. The name which they lift up as a standard belongs to Him in whom indeed there dwells the fulness of the Godhead bodily, but who was and is 'despised and rejected of men.' They glory in the cross of Jesus Christ their Lord.8 Knowing by the grace of their election, through the revealing power of the Spirit, the truth of Christ's person and the unsearchable treasure of His love, they brave willingly the contempt of the Jewish and Gentile families alike, and in the conscious possession, in Christ, of the righteousness of God, can make their boast unfeignedly in Him who has redeemed them from the earth. Let it then be well remembered that 'rejoicing in Christ Jesus' means, in Paul's sense of the words, something vastly different from delighting in popular Christian melodies and sensational religious services — that it implies death to the world and life to God; that to boast in what the world derides is possible only to a faith which lives above the world, and sees Him who is to sense invisible; and that to such the things of the Spirit are the chosen and natural objects of desire and pursuit, and not the things of the flesh. It is the circumcision who rejoice or make their boast in Christ Jesus, and they are, as we have seen, a people separate to God. Lastly, they —

'Have no confidence in the flesh.' Carnal confidence, in the sense of natural self-reliance, is, as a moral trait, inseparable from the 'flesh,' against which every believer has to watch and fight. Its corrective in a child of God is self-judgment. It is the snare into which Simon, son of Jonas, fell, to be delivered through self-knowledge by the grace of Him whose warnings he despised. But it is not exactly this that the Apostle is here disclaiming on behalf of 'the circumcision,' but rather, as the sequel shows, a false religious trust. Paul's language can be truth in the lips of no child of Adam who has not first found by faith both death and burial for his 'old man' in the Gospel. For such words belong to those only who are themselves no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit, because indwelt by the Spirit of Christ.9 Another confidence is theirs — that boldness which articulates the boast in Christ which we have just been hearing;1 a confidence which has its rest in God, whose manifested love in Christ is both believed and known by those whom, by His effectual calling, He has separated to Himself. He who was once their natural dread is now become their hiding-place.2 The joy of a true believer is that he has found in Christ deliverance from himself, as well as an escape from his just judgment as a sinner. His sorrow is the still continuing evil vitality of that which, though judicially dead, strives still within him, so long as he is in this fleshly tabernacle, against the Spirit of its Divine supplanter. Instead, therefore, of confidence in the flesh there is, for God's children, groaning in this body until the day of its redemption come. There is a constant jealousy of the contagion of the flesh in every divinely enlightened conscience, while God's children find no fear in that 'love' which is the origin of their election, and the eternal portion of their hope.3

Of course it is on the principle of faith, and this excludes all boasting on our part, for faith is merely receiving what God is offering. If a man has been saved from drowning, he does not go about boasting in the fact that he allowed his rescuer to do it by trusting him. He makes his boast in the power and willingness of the one who rescued him, and by so doing confesses that he himself was helpless and lost. So faith means turning away from self-effort and self-righteousness as a means of justification before God to find it in another — even Jesus. And we learn the blessed fact that God is just and the justifier of him that believes in Jesus.

In Psalm 34 we read, "My soul shall make boast in the Lord: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad." Most boasting is hateful, especially to "the humble." But they are glad to hear it when we boast in the Lord: and so our passage ends with the thought of aiding the joy of the Philippian saints: and remember "Joy" is almost the key-word of this Epistle. The word translated "boast" has the thought of "Joyous Exultation." In Philippians 3:3 we will meet the word again, but as a verb; and, if the Lord will, we will speak more fully of it then: but notice how beautifully this portion ends: "I shall remain, and shall-remain-along-with you all, to aid your progress and joy in the faith, in order that your joyful exultation (or, boast) may abound in Christ Jesus, through me (or, as to me) by my presence again with you." Their joy would produce boasting, or, joyful exultation, not in Paul, but in Christ Jesus: and though it would be caused by Paul's presence with them once again, their boast would be in Christ Jesus. Too often we find the saints of God boasting in themselves; of their own doings: but let us remember that "He that speaketh of himself, seeketh his own glory." May the Lord mercifully deliver us from all such boasting, but fill our mouths with joyful exultation in Christ Jesus!

Verses 17, 18. "But he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord," etc. If there must be boasting with God's labourers, let it have at least its proper object. The Lord is the sole boast of the true disciple's heart. Whether as sinners saved by grace, or as anointed ministers of truth, it is in Him they stand, and out of His fulness they are all supplied. By Him they work, and in Him their labours find their end. Self-praise will wither in His presence, and become reproach; self-judgment leads to fruitful diligence, and at His appearing will become a crown.

Further, remark, that dealing with self, our own spiritual condition, is the secret of power, not the quantity of divine revelations we have to communicate, valuable as this may be in its place. For power Paul was dealt with in his own soul, its own dangers and state, and then Christ's power rested on him. Lastly, as to our glorying in our position in Christ; it is all right. "Of such a one I will glory; yet of myself I will not glory but in mine infirmities." When I think of my place in Christ, of the "man in Christ," of such a one we ought to glory. This is no presumption. It cannot be otherwise, whenever we know ourselves in Christ. Do you think I can do anything but glory in being in Christ, and like Christ in glory? Of such a one I will. Let no pretended humility deprive us of this. It is legalism. Of myself, of that of which I have the living consciousness of a man down here, I cannot glory, unless it be in those sufferings for Christ and infirmities of whatever kind they may be, connected with them, which are used to put the flesh down, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.