Who is Philippians 3:19 referring to when it says, "Whose god is their belly"?

His exposure falls under five heads. They are enemies of the cross of Christ. Not perhaps of His death, but of His cross — of that cross which has before God put the sentence of death on man, his wisdom and his glory. Their end is destruction. This alone would make Paul weep as he thought of them. Their god is their belly; that is, their own lusts and desires governed them: desires often of a gross nature, though, we suppose, not always such. Always however, in some shape or form, self was their god. 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. Their minds were set on earthly things. Earth was the sphere of their thoughts and their religion. They carried on the tradition of those of whom the Psalmist spoke, saying, "They have set their eyes bowing down to the earth" (Ps. 17:11).

If it seems strong language to say that their god is their belly, it is still perfectly accurate: their sole object is really the satisfying of their personal, present desires: the true God is not in their thoughts. And they proudly boast in the very things which are actually to their shame! How grossly perverted are the thoughts of religious pretension! Their description ends with the simple statement which not even they would think of denying, "who mind earthly things." Indeed, some are so blinded as to consider it sinful if we do not mind earthly things. Witness the indignant cry of democracy to the effect that we flagrantly fail in our duty if we refrain from voting and entering into political matters. Can the true children of God be deceived by this kind of hollow vanity? Alas, that such cases are greatly multiplied today. Is our heart really for the Lord, or is it for earthly comfort, prosperity, and advantage? Shall we who know Christ be so misled as to resemble these mere empty professors of Christianity, "who mind earthly things?" The ungodly world itself is not so blind but what it can discern the difference between the selfish, earthly-minded motives of such profession and those motives of godly faith that seek not mere earthly advantage, but the "things that are not seen."

Their characteristic is that they are enemies, not of Christ personally, but of the cross — that cross by which we are crucified to the world and the world to us. Their hearts were on earthly things, which, not satisfying them, as earthly things cannot, made their god to be their belly; their inward craving became their master, and made them drudge in its service.

Their characteristic is, that they are enemies, not of Christ personally, but of the Cross, that Cross by which we are "crucified to the world, and the world to us." Their hearts were on earthly things, which, not satisfying them, as earthly things cannot, made their god to be their belly; — that inward craving became their master, and made them drudges in its service.

Verse 19. 'Whose end is destruction,' etc. If his charge be true, there can be but one end for those who are its objects, since to be 'an enemy of the cross of Christ' is to be an adversary of the Lord, and for such everlasting destruction from His presence is ordained. But we have now to see what constitutes this enmity, and under what forms it is discovered, and we shall find that while it is in its ordinary character negative, it is itself the result of an active preference for other things. Of these enemies of the cross of Christ three distinctive attributes are affirmed. They serve not God, but their own belly; they glory in their shame; and their minds are set on earthly things.

As to the first of these, the Apostle's words are a brief description of the unchanged natural habit of self-seeking, which marks those who, while professing the faith of Abel, are 'gone in the way of Cain.' The 'belly-service' here mentioned represents other things besides the literal gratification of appetite, though surfeiting and drunkenness are among the evil things against which the Lord has warned all His disciples. It expresses self-pleasing under all its forms, both carnal and spiritual; being placed, both here and elsewhere, in contrast to the service of God and of Christ.5 Instead of working out their own salvation with fear and trembling, these enemies of the cross are reposing in a false and fatal security. Mistaking names for things, and forms for realities, they assume boldly for themselves a personal interest in God's great salvation, while their hearts are altogether strangers to His love. Professing to know Him, in their works they deny Him, and are found as to every good work reprobate.6 For no work is good in His sight which is not wrought by faith in love. Their wisdom is not the wisdom of the just, and which comes from above, but that which is from beneath. They are carnal, and mind the things of the flesh. Loving themselves, loving money, and loving pleasures more than God, their life-study is to practise lawlessness in an outwardly religious way. While Christ's true redeemed are zealous of good works, these practical deniers of the Lord that bought them are only 'studying comfort.' With no eye for the poverty of Jesus for their sakes, they are, in the last days of Divine long-suffering, intent only upon worldly gains. And, thus occupied with heart and hand,

'Their glory is in their shame.' The glory of a true believer is to be reproached for the name of Christ, to be confessedly a stranger upon earth, to have his conversation in the world by the grace of God, and, as a joint-heir through grace, to suffer here with Christ. His shame is to be living in pleasure on the earth, to be seeking honour in the world, and to be walking, with the name of Christ on his lips, as other Gentiles walk. But already these conditions were reversed in the case of 'many,' and more, he too well knew, would follow the same evil way. The denunciations of Scripture, we should remember, are always according to the relations in which its objects stand professedly to God. Israel's idolatries were shameless adulteries in the eyes of Jehovah, whose covenant they brake; and for a Church to be, in its own eyes, rich and plenteous is to be a loathing to the mind of Him who walks among the candlesticks.7 But Paul's words here depict clearly a state of things which, already begun, would result in a general cessation of the power of godliness in the professing body of Christ, an abandonment of their distinctive hope as partakers of the heavenly calling, and a contented settlement on earth — the substitution, in fact, of a self-satisfied 'Christendom' for the Church or assembly of the living God.8

"Nevertheless," he says, "whereto we have already attained, let us walk in the same steps;" that is, whatever may be our convictions at the present, let us act according to these convictions. Let us have truth practical. If we want it to be what the truth should be, we must walk in it to make it real. In this way, also, he could exhort them to follow him as he was following Christ, — to follow any others who were thus walking: not, as is evident, a following of man as man. We have to scrutinize the walk in order rightly to follow it. No man is altogether a model, and therefore Paul must say of himself, giving us the limit in this: "as I follow Christ." This brings us of necessity, to Christ Himself after all, as the one perfect Example for us; while, at the same time, we recognize and are encouraged by the example of those who are following Him. But he has now to warn them that already there were many walking, — of course with a profession, which is argued by the walk, and yet of whom he had told them often, and now even weeping told them, that they were the enemies of the cross of Christ. Not enemies of Christ Himself, exactly; that is not the thing of which he is speaking. They take no place of open adversaries, clearly, and they may even make much of the cross of Christ itself, if it were to shelter themselves by the grace that is in it from the rightful judgment of their unholy ways. It was possible, even then, as we know, to turn the grace of God into fleshly license, but this could not possibly avert the end to which such a course would lead. We have seen again and again that there is a way which leads to a certain end, and which will always lead there, although the mercy and goodness of God are not restricted by this; and there is a way of death from which, if grace works, it must deliver the soul. It cannot save one in it. For these, then, their end was destruction. Their god was really their belly; that is to say, the fleshly craving in them had never been set aside by any satisfaction that they had found for themselves in Christ. The craving of an unrenewed nature, — for he is not speaking of Christians, plainly, — led and governed them. These were their god, as he says, in strong, decisive language; and so deceived could they be as to glory in their shame. Earthly things they valued and secured, — prided themselves upon securing them. How different from that which we have had before us as the apostle's example!

"For many are-walking, (of whom I many-times told you, but now even weeping tell you) as the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose god is the belly, and the glory in their shame, the-ones minding earthly-things."

The reason they were to fix their eyes on the saints having Paul and his friends for a pattern was that there were many who were walking very differently. The word used for walk here and in Verse 17 indicates walking alone, and there is no thought of following in line. In the early verses of this chapter we saw that the enemy was seeking to bring in those who taught circumcision and the law of Moses, as the means of salvation. Now we come to those who go to the other extreme. The 'narrow road' has two sides, and often in our eagerness to avoid one side, we may fall in the ditch on the other side. These men were 'enemies of the cross of Christ.' It does not say they were enemies of Christ, but to take up the cross and follow Christ was the last thing they desired. But there is no other way of safety except by the cross; so 'their end is destruction.' This word is the key note of 2 Peter 2: False teachers who bring upon themselves swift destruction. Their god was their stomach: their stomachs had first place in their lives. Are there not such today? And they had their minds on things of earth. These people evidently had come in among the Christians, and there may have been no gross evil, as men see it, in their lives, that would call for excommunication. Their daily walk may have been better than some who were true believers: for it was a day in which all sought their own. They may have attended the meetings regularly, and even taken the Lord's Supper: yet, their end was destruction.

"Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk, so as ye have us for an ensample." They had in Paul the true proper sample of Christian life and experience. And now all this is brought out the more forcibly by the contrast of the next two verses. "Many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ." 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. "They were the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things." And here the question is often introduced, "Is he speaking of mere professors?" 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, and what he says applies in principle to all who profess Christ. It was not of heathen he was speaking. What else could the poor heathen do but mind earthly things? What he speaks of is meant to tell upon you and me. 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.

Let two remarks on the address suffice. "Those who minded earthly things" does not mean "the working of unsubdued flesh" (404), but rather of flesh religious, seeking its own things, without living association with Christ on high. Alas! it is and has been ever since the religion of the day. They are enemies, not exactly of Christ, but of His cross. It is a fair show in the flesh, not its corrupt or violent working.

"They walked according to the flesh, minding earthly things instead of the heavenly, the heavens being the proper and only sphere of spiritual life, demonstrated that they knew nothing of the matter as to the heart, and for the truth of resurrection and life in a risen Christ, were walking according to their own religious feelings, making this their god. And surely there is enough of this everywhere, a bringing down revelation of the truth to the standard of human feelings and experiences, making these the umpire instead of God. It is a religious appetite ruling and hungry, and satisfied with its own sensations when filled. Israel was charged to take heed lest when they had eaten and were full, they should forget Jehovah (Deut. 8:14) and the prayer of Agur in Prov. 30:9 is, 'lest I be full and deny Thee.' The grand object, Christ Himself, is ignored, and religious excitement, like any other intoxication, displaces Him and occupies the soul to its damage and peril. It is the belly, not Christ. It is religious emotion, it is not Christ. It is perfection in and of the flesh; it is having no confidence in the flesh. The flesh may find its satisfaction and growth as much in religion as in the lower passions and the more secular world. The cross came in to put all this to death. Hence these are enemies to the cross of Christ, even though much mention may be made of the cross, and even continual prostrations before it practiced" (M. Taylor).