The apostle, after counselling the Philippians to rejoice in the Lord, somewhat abruptly recalls the case of errorists of the Judaistic type, who, though not at Philippi, were not far from its boundaries. He deems it "safe" to give timely warning: "Beware of the dogs, of the evil-workers, of the concision."

I. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JUDAIST ERRORISTS.

1. They were "dogs in the Jewish sense, that is, impure and antichristian enemies of the truth. It would be a surprise for Jews to be descried by the epithet they themselves always applied so scornfully to Gentiles.

2. They were evil-workers." There was no want of religious activity among them, but it had a selfish and evil root. The apostle elsewhere speaks of "false apostles, deceitful workers" (2 Corinthians 11:13). The Pharisees "compassed sea and land to make one proselyte" (Matthew 23:15). But their zeal was essentially evil.

3. They were "the concision - the mutilation - who rejoiced in a mere manual, outward mutilation of the flesh, forgetful of the significance of the true circumcision.

II. FUNDAMENTAL DISTINCTION BETWEEN SUCH ERRORISTS AND THE TRUE CIRCUMCISION. For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." There are three characteristic points involved in the circumcision of heart which belongs to all true believers, whether Jews or Gentiles.

1. Their worship is essentially spiritual. They "worship by the Spirit of God." It was not a worship by mere external rites, as if all its merit consisted in rigid ritualistic conformities, but the true worship of God, which is only possible through the influence of his Holy Spirit (John 4:23; Romans 8:26), who "helps our infirmities" of supplication. It is the characteristic of saints that they "pray in the Holy Ghost' (Jude 1:20).

2. Their entire dependence is in Christ Jesus. "Who glory in Christ Jesus." This is the essential distinction of the Christian. "Let him that glorieth glory in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 1:31). He does not glory in rites or ordinances, but in a personal Redeemer, who saves him from his sins.

3. They have no confidence in mere external privileges. "And have no confidence in the flesh." The primary allusion here may be to circumcision, but the clause points to the merely outward and earthly in religious form. The Judaists gloried in the flesh. "Seeing that many glory after the flesh, I will glory also" (2 Corinthians 11:18; Galatians 6:13, 14). - T.C.

I. ITS MANIFESTATIONS.

1. Sensuality.

2. Pride.

3. Covetousness.

II. ITS SHAME. It degrades —

1. The understanding.

2. The moral nature.

3. The immortal spirit.

III. ITS END.

1. Ruin.

2. Misery.

(J. Lyth, D. D.)

There is —

1. A philosophic materialism which reduces the soul to a series of phenomena to be accounted for by superiority of physical organization in man, and makes God an expression for the sum of nature's workings.

2. A practical materialism which does not trouble itself to deny the existence of the soul or the claims of God, but is nevertheless buried in matter, and swallowed up of earthliness. There were baptized Christians in Philippi who were enemies of the Cross, because while wearing the Christian name they were given up to sensuality. This, in various forms, is a crying evil in all prosperous times. The text is applicable to the worldling now.

I. WHO ARE THEY WHO MIND EARTHLY THINGS?

1. Those whose sole care is the increase of wealth. Business occupies their whole attentions. Material interests absorb their whole soul. Such was the man described by our Lord (Luke 7:18, etc.). These divorce what God has joined together — diligence in business and fervency of spirit.

2. Those whose sole enjoyment is the pleasures of this life (Luke 16:19). "Whose god is their belly" describes one type of sensual enjoyment. But a man wholly given up to even innocent enjoyment is, in truth, a mere sensualist. He neglects and despises the pleasures of —

(1)devotion;

(2)godly companionship;

(3)heavenly anticipation (ver. 20).

II. WHAT IS THE END OF THOSE WHO MIND EARTHLY THINGS? "Destruction." "They that sow to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption" (Luke 16:24-25).

(Family Churchman.)

Even heathen thought in its higher types could brand sensualists as κοιλιοδαίμονες, men who worshipped belly gods. The striking words which Euripides puts into the mouth of the Cyclops, the type of this class, have often been cited in this connection: "I sacrifice to no one but myself; not to the gods, but to this my belly, the greatest of the gods; for to eat and drink each day is the god for wise men." We have, further, the greatest of the German poets representing Mephistopheles as contemptuously, yet insinuatingly saying to the fool rejoicing in his possessions, "Du hast dafur was Schluud und Bauch begehrt." And we have the words of scathing denunciation of John Ruskin, "The creation over which God appointed us kings, and in which we have chosen to live as swine." With such instances of the contempt with which men can justly regard the lower, baser levels of life, we can the better comprehend the indignant yet sorrowing scorn with which the apostle contemplates the objects of his denunciation. In view, too, of such grossness of nature as is here depicted, we can listen to the call which has addressed to every true cross bearer — the call to higher things — "Thou hast received a belly that thou mayest feed, not distend it; that thou mayest have the mastery over it, not have it as mistress over thee; that it may minister to thee for the nourishment of the other parts, not that thou mayest minister to it; not that thou mayest exceed limits. The sea, when it passes its bounds, doth not work so many evils as the belly doth to our body, together with our soul." They are men who, in the contemptuous words of the Roman satirist, in their all-engrossing care for their belly and their amusements, ask no other favours of their emperor than "bread and circus games." They are those who, as Cornelius a Lapide puts it, are like the moles, ever concerned with the earth, ever blindly digging in the earth, and ever breathing of the earth, whereas Christians feed on heavenly food and breathe the air of heaven. Or once more, we can recognize these men in the picture in the interpreter's chamber of Bunyan's allegory, "The man that could look no way but downwards, with the muck rake in his hand, while there stood over his head one with a celestial crown in his hand, and proffered him that crown for his muck rake; but the man did neither look up nor regard, but raked to himself the straws, the small sticks, and dust of the floor."

(J. Hutchison, D. D.)

Carnal men are daily partakers of the serpent's curse: they go on their belly, and eat dust.

(Archbishop Leighton.)

The Sicilians erected an altar and a statue in the temple of Ceres to Adephagia, the goddess of gluttony, thus literally illustrating these words. Similar examples of the personification and worship of lusts abound in modern heathenism.

(J. F. B. Tinling, B. A.)

Of Anacreon, the famous lyric poet (), whose genius was devoted to the praise of sensual pleasures, the people of Athens raised a statue in the citadel, in which he was represented as an old drunken man singing. He had lived to eighty-five, and was choked at last by a grape stone.

(J. F. B. Tinling, B. A.)

A gentleman in England, who had a chapel attached to his house, was visited by a person from London, to whom he showed the chapel. "What a glorious kitchen this would make!" said the visitor. "When I make a god of my belly," replied the gentleman, "I will make a kitchen of my chapel."

(Biblical Museum.)

Dr. Justus Jonus told Dr. Martin Luther of a noble and powerful Misnian who above all things occupied himself in amassing gold and silver, and was so buried in darkness that he gave no heed to the five books of Moses, and had even said to Duke John Frederick, who was discoursing with him upon the gospel, "Sir, the gospel pays no interest." "Have you no grains?" interposed Luther; and then told this fable: — "A lion, making a great feast, invited all the beasts, and with them some swine. When all manner of dainties were set before the guests, the swine asked, 'Have you no grains?'" "Even so," continued the Doctor, "even so, in these days, is it with our epicureans; we preachers set before them, in our churches, the most dainty and costly dishes, as everlasting salvation, the remission of sins, and God's grace; but they, like swine, turn up their snouts, and ask for guilders: offer a cow nutmeg, and she will reject it for old hay. This reminds me of the answer of certain parishioners to their minister, Ambrose R. He had been earnestly exhorting them to come and listen to the Word of God. 'Well,' said they, 'if you will tap a good barrel of beer for us we'll come with all our hearts and hear you.' The gospel at Wittenberg is like unto the rain which, falling upon a river, produces little effect; but descending upon a dry, thirsty soil, renders it fertile."

(Luther's Table Talk.)

Benjamin, Paul, PhilippiansPhilippiFALSE, Beware, Circumcision, Concision, Dogs, Evil, Evil-workers, Flesh, Mutilate, Mutilators, Self-mutilators, Watch, Workers, Workmen1. He warns them to beware of the false teachers;
4. showing that himself has greater cause than they to trust in the righteousness of the law;
7. which he counts as loss, to gain Christ and his righteousness;
12. acknowledging his own imperfection and pressing on toward the goal;
15. He exhorts them to be thus minded;
17. and to imitate him,
18. and to decline carnal ways.

Philippians 3:2

     4630   dog
     5214   attack
     5897   judging others
     5978   warning
     7943   ministry, in church
     8490   watchfulness

Philippians 3:2-3

     8451   mortification

Philippians 3:2-7

     5943   self-deception

Philippians 3:2-9

     7336   circumcision, spiritual

September 6. "Finally, My Brethren, Rejoice in the Lord" (Phil. Iii. 1).
"Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord" (Phil. iii. 1). There is no spiritual value in depression. One bright and thankful look at the cross is worth a thousand morbid, self-condemning reflections. The longer you look at evil the more it mesmerizes and defiles you into its own likeness. Lay it down at the cross, accept the cleansing blood, reckon yourself dead to the thing that was wrong, and then rise up and count yourself as if you were another man and no longer the same person; and then, identifying …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

May 25. "That I May Know Him" (Phil. Iii. 10).
"That I may know Him" (Phil. iii. 10). Better to know Jesus Himself than to know the truth about Him for the deep things of God as they are revealed by the Holy Ghost. It was Paul's great desire, "That I may know Him," not about Him, not the mysteries of the wonderful world, of the deeper and higher teachings of God, but to enter into the Holy of Holies, where Christ is, where the Shekinah is shining and making the place glorious with the holiness of God, and then to enter into the secret of the …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

January 27. "This one Thing I Do" (Phil. Iii. 13).
"This one thing I do" (Phil. iii. 13). One of Satan's favorite employees is the switchman. He likes nothing better than to side-track one of God's express trains, sent on some blessed mission and filled with the fire of a holy purpose. Something will come up in the pathway of the earnest soul, to attract its attention and occupy its strength and thought. Sometimes it is a little irritation and provocation. Sometimes it is some petty grievance we stop to pursue or adjust. Sometimes it is somebody …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

May 15. "I Press Toward the Mark" (Phil. Iii. 14).
"I press toward the mark" (Phil. iii. 14). We have thought much about what we have received. Let us think of the things we have not received, of some of the vessels that have not yet been filled, of some of the places in our life that the Holy Ghost has not yet possessed for God, and signalized by His glory and His presence. Shall the coming months be marked by a diligent, heart-searching application of "the rest of the oil," to the yet unoccupied possibilities of our life and service? Have we known …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Twenty Third Sunday after Trinity Enemies of the Cross of Christ and the Christian's Citizenship in Heaven.
Text: Philippians 3, 17-21. 17 Brethren, be ye imitators [followers] together of me, and mark them that so walk even as ye have us for an ensample. 18 For many walk, of whom I told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: 19 whose end is perdition, whose god is the belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. 20 For our citizenship [conversation] is in heaven; whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: 21 who …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III

Laid Hold of and Laying Hold
'I follow after if that I may apprehend that for which also I was apprehended of Christ Jesus.'--PHIL. iii. 12. 'I was laid hold of by Jesus Christ.' That is how Paul thinks of what we call his conversion. He would never have 'turned' unless a hand had been laid upon him. A strong loving grasp had gripped him in the midst of his career of persecution, and all that he had done was to yield to the grip, and not to wriggle out of it. The strong expression suggests, as it seems to me, the suddenness …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Rule of the Road
'Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule.'--PHIL. iii. 16. Paul has just been laying down a great principle--viz. that if the main direction of a life be right, God will reveal to a man the points in which he is wrong. But that principle is untrue and dangerous, unless carefully guarded. It may lead to a lazy tolerance of evil, and to drawing such inferences as, 'Well! it does not much matter about strenuous effort, if we are right at bottom it will all come …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Soul's Perfection
'Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.'--PHIL. iii. 15. 'As many as be perfect'; and how many may they be? Surely a very short bede-roll would contain their names; or would there be any other but the Name which is above every name upon it? Part of the answer to such a question may be found in observing that the New Testament very frequently uses the word to express not so much the idea of moral completeness …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Warnings and Hopes
'Brethren, be ye imitators together of me, and mark them which so walk even as ye have us for an ensample. For many walk, of whom I told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is perdition, whose God is the belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven; from whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Preparing to End
'Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not irksome, but for you it is safe. 2. Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the concision: 3. For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.'--PHIL. iii. 1-3 (R.V.). The first words of the text show that Paul was beginning to think of winding up his letter, and the preceding context also suggests that. The …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Saving Knowledge
'That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death; if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead.'--PHIL. iii. 10-11 (R.V.). We have seen how the Apostle was prepared to close his letter at the beginning of this chapter, and how that intention was swept away by the rush of new thoughts. His fervid faith caught fire when he turned to think of what he had lost, and how infinitely more he had gained in …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Race and the Goal
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Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Loss of All
'Though I myself might have confidence even in the flesh: if any other man thinketh to have confidence in the flesh, I yet more: circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; as touching zeal, persecuting the church; as touching the sp; dog

The Loss of All
'Though I myself might have confidence even in the flesh: if any other man thinketh to have confidence in the flesh, I yet more: circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; as touching zeal, persecuting the church; as touching the sp; dog

The Loss of All
'Though I myself might have confidence even in the flesh: if any other man thinketh to have confidence in the flesh, I yet more: circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; as touching zeal, persecuting the church; as touching the sp; dog

The Loss of All
'Though I myself might have confidence even in the flesh: if any other man thinketh to have confidence in the flesh, I yet more: circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; as touching zeal, persecuting the church; as touching the sp; dog

The Loss of All
'Though I myself might have confidence even in the flesh: if any other man thinketh to have confidence in the flesh, I yet more: circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; as touching zeal, persecuting the church; as touching the sp; dog

The Loss of All
'Though I myself might have confidence even in the flesh: if any other man thinketh to have confidence in the flesh, I yet more: circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; as touching zeal, persecuting the church; as touching the sp; dog

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