Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. For me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe. Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation! For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh, though I also might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.
Imagine a mental hospital. Each patient lives in their own world which is very real to them. One guy thinks he is very rich, noble, or a king. He takes a straw from the ground, twists it around his head, and calls it a crown. He takes a broom and says it is his sword. Then he sits on a dung hill and calls it his throne, seeing dogs there as his citizens. They are gathering stones and gravel, and they are the treasure of gold, diamonds, and pearls of his kingdom. But it is all so real to their mind. There are a lot of religious mental cases. A guy thinks he is a true child of God, sent from God to this earth, and thinks he can see God and hear God speaking; “God spoke to him this morning, sitting next to me,” he says. He can see that he is surrounded by angels. He does some mumbling things in worship and singing, and he thinks God is well pleased with all he does. He developed a cancer, but he refuses to take medicine, saying God will heal him. He didn’t get up for 24 hours one day, and he said he went to heaven, that he saw all the dead bodies rise and speak to him, and that he spoke to David and Abraham. And he saw Jesus, heaven, and hell. He would cut himself, saying he is purifying himself. He will hit the walls with his hands, saying he is fighting with the devil. Hear how he will laugh and sing and appear to be happy in his delusions. But is this true devotion or happiness? Is this reality? It is all a dream and imagination—a mental illness.
The Bible says that is what happened to this world spiritually. Romans 1:21-23 says, “For although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.”
According to these verses, spiritually the whole world is full of mental patients. Each one thinks he is wise but is mentally ill. They think God is very pleased with them, that God will not punish them, but that He owes them. They think they are doing a big favor to God, either by their birth qualifications or by what they are doing. Their conscience is at peace. Paul calls this mental condition “confidence in the flesh.” If there is something that numbs the conscience, making them feel they are God’s children while they are doing the devil’s children’s work, it is this religion. This religion of self-righteousness satisfies their fleshly pride, calms the conscience, and gets the praise of men. Like an addiction, men love this, and we all naturally fall into this. The danger of this religion is that it never allows them to be truly saved and experience true religion. “Confidence in the flesh” never allows a man to worship in spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus. A man or woman comes out of this mental state only when the Holy Spirit opens his eyes and makes him see Jesus Christ. That is a true salvation experience.
Before admitting people to membership, we ask them to write their salvation experience. We also made church members share their salvation experience in the evenings for three weeks. In today’s passage in Philippians, we have one of the greatest salvation experience testimonies. It is Paul’s own testimony; he talks about the dramatic transformation that occurred in his mind at the moment he met the living Christ. He was a mental patient earlier; suddenly, he came to his senses. Paul uses a business commercial term to explain his experience in verse 7, calling “profit” and “loss.” An accountant would indicate all profits in one column and losses in another. In his salvation, as a Jew with great credentials, Paul thought there were some things in his life that were “profit” and would earn salvation for him. He thought he would impress God greatly and enter the kingdom, so he spent his life accumulating those profits, which he calls “righteousness from the law.” But the moment he met Jesus Christ, his mental state was healed. He realized all his “profits” were “loss.” In fact, he calls them “dirty rubbish,” “dung,” which we want to get rid of as soon as possible. Just like a mental patient sitting on a dung hill, calling himself king, stones “gold,” and himself a “royal child of God,” suddenly comes to his senses and his eyes are opened. He instantaneously realizes, “Ugh… how mentally ill I was, I thought these dirty things were great.” He says, “I threw up all that in order to gain Christ.” I gave up all my righteousness by law to gain the righteousness which God gave through faith.
That’s the central truth of this great passage. It is a marvelous passage, we can call it “the essence of Paul’s theology.” In just ten verses here, very briefly, he outlines what it takes him the first five chapters of Romans to fully describe: an acceptable, real righteousness before God. This is the great discovery of his life, that this righteousness comes not through birth or human effort or achievement, but through faith in Jesus Christ.
The amazing thing here is that what he calls “rubbish” or “dung” is not a sinful, wretched life; it is an outwardly blameless, highly religious life. When he says, “I was the chief of sinners,” he does not mean he lived a wicked, immoral, sinful life; he lived an eminently moral life. But when he saw the infinite glory of Christ, he saw even the highest, outwardly religious life as the deepest, vilest rubbish of life, like dung. It’s one thing to act immorally and sinfully; it’s something else to believe that God is so low that you can earn acceptance with Him by your outward moral life. A sinful life violates His law; an outwardly moral life brings down the standard of God’s law to our level. Thus, he saw his religion of trying to please God through self-effort and religious works as rubbish.
Now, the context. Why does Paul bring his personal testimony here? He is not like false teachers who always keep talking about their testimonies. Remember, the Philippians were being assaulted by a group known as Judaizers. They were teaching that to be saved, you have to be circumcised and follow Mosaic rituals. He is attacking the Judaizers, calling them “dogs,” and tells them, “We are the true circumcision, as Christians we worship God in spirit and rejoice in Jesus. We put no confidence in the flesh.” True Christians do not trust in anything they do to earn salvation. Paul knows the danger of “confidence in the flesh.” As soon as you put confidence in the flesh, you cannot “worship in spirit” and “rejoice in Christ Jesus.”
Paul expects a reaction from the Judaizers. They may say, “Ha, you are all Gentiles worshipping idols. Now, suddenly, like a mushroom that just grew yesterday, you are Christians. What do you know about our Jewish heritage?” like so many dispensationalists say, “You don’t understand the value of Jewishness, nation, and the privileges of Judaism because you’re a Gentile Christian.” To answer that objection, he recounts all his Jewish qualifications as a testimony. He says, “Look, as a Jew, I can tell you to put no confidence in the flesh.” Notice verse 4: “though I also might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so.”
The Judaizers are teaching to put confidence in the flesh. In attacking his enemies, Paul’s style often is that he takes up the enemy’s own weapons and kills them with it. Paul is challenging the Judaizers to a showdown, a competition. “Come, guys.” Verse 3: “You say you are of the circumcision. No, you are mutilators. We Christians are the true circumcision.” “Now if you can put confidence in the flesh, more than anyone else, I can have that confidence to a higher degree,” and he lists his qualifications as a Jew. He lists them as “losses” and “gains.” Let us look at his “losses” this week and “gain” next week. These are qualifications that cannot save anyone. Again, he isn’t saying all this is of no value socially or educationally, historically, but he says all that can’t save you.
Places like India are full of traditional churches—Roman Catholic, CSI, CNI—and Arminian teaching, man-made teaching. What a revolutionary message this is. This is Paul’s great discovery, not only here; it dominates all his 13 epistles, and in fact, it is the central truth of the New Testament. Most of the people in the world believe they will attain eternal life by accumulating religious credentials by their own efforts and sacrifices. Thinking they are wise, they have become mentally ill and live in deception. If they would just read the New Testament, like the Lord opened Paul’s eyes and Luther and other reformers’ eyes, may God open people’s eyes to see that all they trust for their salvation is nothing but manure, it is garbage, worthless. Salvation is not based on birth, human efforts, or religious attainments. It has all to do with Christ. Okay, what are those religious qualifications that cannot save anyone? Paul lists seven, in two categories: the first three are inherited traditionally from birth from our parents, and the next four are what we achieve in life.
1. Salvation does not come by rituals.
He says the first thing that was a “profit” to me and I came to count as a “loss” was that, in verse 5, “I was circumcised the eighth day.”
This was a great privilege of the Old Testament covenant people. All boys born in a chosen Jewish family would be circumcised on the eighth day. It was a strict Jewish rite, the first ritual, followed by a lifetime of rituals. This happened only to a boy born into a Jewish family. Proselytes, converts, were circumcised when they got converted, mostly in adulthood. An “eighth day” circumcision means you were born in a Jewish family. “I am a legitimate Jew by birth, Jewish blood runs in my veins, nursed in the ceremonies of my ancestral religion, and followed the rituals from the very beginning.” He brings this up first because circumcision was the Judaizers’ big issue. He attacks them: “You say you are saved by circumcision, that it’s vital to salvation, and I’m telling you I did that eight days after birth, according to the strictest demands of the law. But it’s rubbish… It didn’t do anything to save me.” Because salvation is not by ritual.
Oh, how many millions are living in a delusional world of traditional Roman Catholic and CSI churches because they were born into a Christian family and were baptized as a child and did a confirmation? They think they are saved and are going to go to heaven. Apostle Paul says it is garbage, it is dung, it is useless. Salvation doesn’t come by rituals, sacraments, whether it is baby baptism or child dedication in Roman Catholic or Protestant churches, or any priest’s or pastor’s prayers, or other religious rituals. As far as salvation is concerned, all those rituals are useless. It’s waste, it’s garbage. Throw it out; it can’t help.
2. Salvation is not by race either.
He says, “If anybody had a right to boast, I might, because not only was I circumcised on the eighth day, but I was of the stock of Israel.” “Stock” means the pure nation of Israel. The privilege of being one of the nation of Israel is unique. Out of all the nations, God said, “Israel only have I known,” and they are the chosen nation of God. Yes, they had great privileges. Romans 9 says, “to them belong the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the temple service and the promises.” They had all the privileges. They are from the line of Abraham. There were many Jews who were not pure, who could not purely trace back their lineage to Abraham after the captivity. Paul says, “I could trace my heritage back to Abraham. See my genealogy, so,” he says, “I am of pure stock of Israel, of the true stuff… a true son of Jacob.” Maybe none of the Judaizers can, so he gets on their nerves. “Anyone can show… I am pure in terms of my Jewish heritage, pure descent from God’s chosen people.” That’s a credential; that has a value. But when it comes to salvation, Paul says it is garbage. Even John the Baptist said to the Pharisees, “Don’t say, ‘We are Abraham’s children,'” because without coming to Christ with true repentance and salvation, it is all useless. “God can bring Abraham’s children from these stones.”
No salvation virtue or grace is gained by being born in a nation, family, or religion. How many people live in a mental world because they were born in a traditional Christian family? They must be God’s children. “We are traditional Christians.” They even affirm “household salvation.” Even our Presbyterian brothers believe that when parents are saved, the children born of those parents are in a covenant relationship with God, so they engage in infant baptism. Your religious family grants you no standing with God, no salvation. It’s useless, it’s garbage, it’s rubbish. Don’t ever trust that.
3. Salvation is not by a higher tribe or caste.
He says in verse 5, not only was he “circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel,” but “of the tribe of Benjamin.” Now this is a higher ranking tribe. Of all of the tribes, certainly the two most elite were Judah and Benjamin. We talk a lot about Judah because Christ came from that tribe. Next to that, the top tribe is Benjamin, which was a very, very elite tribe. Why? First of all, Benjamin was born to Jacob’s favorite wife, Rachel, not an unloved wife or bondslaves like other tribes. He was the last child of the beloved wife, the tenderly beloved Benjamin. Genesis 35 tells us Benjamin was the only son of Jacob born in the promised land. A very unique identity and title to that land. “Do you know my my caste, my tribe… very special.”
Furthermore, Benjamin was given unique military priority. Read Judges 5:14 and Hosea 5:8, and you will find that apparently when the troops went to battle, Benjamin was the front line. They must have been courageous, great soldiers. The first king of the nation came from this tribe, and Paul was named Saul after his name. When God divided up the land, the promised land, Jerusalem was given to Benjamin; the holy city itself was in its territory. When all ten tribes rebelled against David’s line in 1 Kings, and the nation was split, the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom were divided, and Benjamin stayed loyal to the Davidic dynasty and stayed with Judah in the south. And Benjamin and Judah formed the legitimate southern kingdom, while the other ten tribes formed the northern tribe. The northern kingdom of ten tribes went off in rebellion and were scattered during captivity. Even during captivity, the hero Mordecai, who saved the Jews, was from the tribe of Benjamin. When there was a restoration, it was the tribes of Judah and Benjamin that were foremost in the restored Israel; you can read this in Ezra. Finally, it was the tribe of Benjamin and Judah that constituted the true Israel or the true people of God. So it was a noble group for a number of reasons; it stood above the other tribes. They were considered a higher tribe. “I come from a higher ranking tribe, a privileged class.”
But even my tribe, caste, cannot save me from my sin or make me righteous before God. The highest aristocracy in Israel couldn’t make me a child of God, and that’s obvious even for us today. No noble religious heritage can make you right with God. You can come from a noble family with a great history; your father or grandfather could even be a priest. You can come from a pastor’s family, a missionary’s family, the Mysore royal family, the Gandhi family, even a Martin Luther descendant. Tribe or rank has nothing to do with salvation. And where you are in the social strata of religiosity is immaterial to God… immaterial. Being right with God is not gained by ritual, ceremony, or rite. It is not gained by race. It is not gained by a higher caste or tribe.
Now all three of those are received by inheritance. If there is anyone who can lay claim to the distinctive fleshly advantages inherited by good bloodlines, family, nation, or tribe, “I above all people have a ground of confidence in the flesh.” Paul had all those, but they really couldn’t earn salvation.
Not only that, he adds four things he achieved by self-effort. So he adds to his inherited “profit” his achieved “profit” and then says, “I consider this rubbish, too.”
4. You cannot be saved by following tradition.
He says, “A Hebrew of Hebrews.” “I am a Hebrew child of Hebrew parents.” “I’ve maintained my tradition, I have followed my tradition.” While there were many Jews born like me but scattered by the time of Christ and influenced by Greek and Roman culture, they became Hellenized from the Greek culture. Many of them lost the Hebrew language, they lost the culture, they lost their tradition. He is saying, “Not me.” “I had Hebrew parents, I’m a Hebrew child. I am a Hebrew of the Hebrews.” Though I was raised in a pagan city, in Greek culture in Tarsus, not in the land of Israel, but in Gentile territory under Greek culture and Roman rule, he says, “I was faithful and personally committed to the tradition of Judaism and the language of my parents.” It is a great pride… like we see “I’m a Tamilian”… “I have followed my tradition.”
According to Acts 22:3, he left his country and went to Jerusalem to study under Gamaliel, who was the chief teacher among the Jews. According to Acts 21:40, he could speak Hebrew fluently. He followed the language, he followed the traditions, he followed the customs, he never deviated. According to Acts 26:4-5, he says, “All Jews know my manner of life from my youth up, which from the beginning was spent among my own nation and at Jerusalem, since they have known about me for a long time previously, if they are willing to testify that I lived as a Pharisee according to the strictest sect of our religion.” He was an unwavering Hebrew. And everybody knows it, he says. All the Jews know it. He was a well-known young man because he had eminent gifts. He was known widely even as a young Jew. And everyone knew his devotion to tradition.
But you know, when God opened my eyes to see the glory of Christ, all that following tradition, being faithful to my mother religion, mother church, mother tradition, was all rubbish, and it can never save me. No amount of loyalty to your ancestral worship, traditional religion, or church can save you. This is all worthless. This is rubbish, manure, garbage, get rid of it. Just because you’re loyal to your parents’ Catholicism, CSI, or a traditional Protestant background, “you’re a Lutheran, an Anglican, because your parents are Lutheran,” that kind of loyalty to a tradition is worthless as far as a means of salvation. It’s worthless. Salvation doesn’t come in those terms. All that will not save you. In fact, that loyalty hinders many people from truly getting saved.
Again, how many sadly… when we share the gospel… teach the Bible and tell them why the church has become a den of thieves, a synagogue of Satan… “there is no truth there… why are you still going there?”… their one argument is, “Oh, my grandfather and parents lived and died in this church, so I will also die here. They gave me baptism, did my marriage, and helped with my education… my wood will burn here… so I have to be faithful.” Paul says all that will not save you. You have to be grateful to God that He used that church to help you. You can be grateful in a worldly way for all their help, but you cannot be saved by being loyal to that church. Following tradition never saves anyone.
5. Salvation is not by outward religion.
Not only is it not by tradition, but not by religion either. But on a religious level, Paul had really achieved, look at verse 5, “As to the law, a Pharisee.” The Pharisees in the Lord’s time had become the worst, and he rightly rebuked them, but they were very outwardly religious men. That is the highest level of religious achievement in Judaism. You can’t get any higher than being a Pharisee.
During the 400 years of the silent period before the New Testament, the Jews began to drift into liberalism. The Sadducees and others attacked the Scriptures, they began to question the authority of Scripture, and they began to compromise. At that time came this group called the Pharisees, which comes to mean “separatists.” They were standing for the word of God, the Old Testament. They fought and taught complete obedience to God’s word with no deviation, so they felt they had to guard the Scripture, they had to study the Scripture, they had to proclaim the Scripture, they had to interpret the Scripture, and they had to apply the Scripture specifically to every aspect of life. They had to rebuke people who didn’t practice God’s word. They started out with a noble cause, but over a period of time, they degenerated to the point where they started believing their outward self-righteous obedience to God’s word saved them. That was the big problem.
But in spite of the degeneracy of Phariseeism, there was a sense that it was the best thing available. They were a very elite group. Very few belonged to that group because it was such a strict, demanding, legalistic lifestyle that very few people desired to live according to that standard.
Paul says, “I was in that group. I knew the entire Old Testament law. I can interpret the law. I have lived by its strictest interpretation. I would go to the temple daily, fasted twice a week, prayed three times a day, tithed even crops and even spices.” If you can boast about your religious life, “I was a Pharisee. I followed outward religion to the highest level, very religious.”
Do you ever look around the world and see people like this? Very religious… flowing in the mouth, ears, nose… all religious devotion. In the way they dress, talk, walk. Some are making such big sacrifices, giving their wealth to churches. Think of priests and nuns who never marry, wearing robes and doing all of their religious activities. Many of them function as priests, sacrificing and taking on themselves unbearable burdens, living in poverty and loneliness. Many of them, in pain and self-denial, fulfill a religious pattern that they believe will please God.
For you and me, this is a great temptation. When we stop worshipping in spirit and rejoicing in Christ Jesus, and instead live with confidence in the flesh, we are nothing but Pharisees. We are happy with our external observance of religion without the spirit. We are satisfied that we went to church. Did we worship? When our brother prayed, was our heart engaged? When we were singing, was our heart engaged? We are happy we prayed, happy we read scripture, but we use the means as an end to satisfy our self-righteous pride. As we studied on Friday, if we don’t have a heart that seeks God—worshipping in spirit, rejoicing in Christ Jesus—all that is just dung.
Paul says he has done all that, living an outward religious life without the spirit, like a whitewashed tomb. That is rubbish, and all that cannot save you. Whether it’s the Judaistic religion, Catholic, Buddhistic, whether it’s Islam, whether it’s Roman Catholicism, whether it’s Protestantism, or even Reformed Baptist, the religious form does not save anyone.
Salvation is Not by Sincerity
Number six, salvation is not by sincerity. People might say, “Pastor, they are so sincere,” and their sincerity can be seen in their zeal. Paul says, “You want to know how sincere I was?” In verse 6, he says, “As to zeal, boy, I was a persecutor of the church.”
I was a persecutor of the church. How zealous were you, Paul? So zealous that I killed Christians. Why? To the Jew, zeal was the single highest virtue of religion. Zeal had two sides: one side is that you love your religion, and the second side is that you hate everything against your religion. I love God so much that I hate whatever offends Him. Zeal for God made old Jews destroy all false religions and idols. They destroyed false teachers.
Paul loved what God had revealed in the Old Testament to the Jews to such a degree that he hated anything against his religion. He thought Christians were against the Jewish religion. He thought Christians were against God. He loved Judaism so much that he hated anything that threatened it, and Christianity threatened it. So he persecuted Christians. To what degree? Read the book of Acts. He breathed out threatening and slaughter on them. The picture is of old dragons that dwell in caves and come out breathing fire from their nostrils. Well, that’s the kind of picture you get of the apostle Paul. He created havoc in the church. He killed Christians. He pursued and killed. You think you’ve got zeal? I’ve got more. I went after them to kill them. You talk about zeal, I mean, this man was consumed with it, consumed with it.
How sincerely zealous Paul was! People say, “Well, it doesn’t really matter what religion you are, as long as you’re sincere.” That’s like saying it doesn’t matter what poison you drink as long as you’re sincere; you’ll be all right. The world is filled with the religiously sincere, people very sincere in their religion, who make great efforts, personal sacrifices, and pay a high cost, wanting to please God. They are very sincere. Some people, many Catholics, go to church every day. They sincerely observe fasting, lent, prayer, and Bible reading. People in many religions pray certain prayers every day. Some of the Pentecostals—you go and see—are so sincere; they sacrifice so much, giving everything to the church, fasting for 21 days, attending daily prayer meetings, and participating in ministry. They are very sincere in their hearts, wanting to do what is right. God says, however sincere you are, if you do not know the truth, you cannot be saved. You can have a lot of zeal and be absolutely wrong. Salvation doesn’t come from being sincere. Paul says, “I was so sincere and thought I was right. Oh, I was so wrong. When I knew the truth, all that sincerity was just garbage when I met Christ.”
Salvation Is Not by Righteousness from the Law
Lastly, salvation is not by righteousness from the law, or by any self-righteous works. In verse 6, he says, “concerning the righteousness which is in the law, what was I? Blameless.” Wow! What does that mean? The idea is that if you took God’s law and watched Paul’s external life, you could not find even one thing wrong against the law. You would have to give him a certification that, according to the law, he is blameless. Outwardly, the man lived an impeccable life according to the law. He lived a blameless life outwardly. By human judgment, he was a model Jew and lived by God’s law. Paul says if you could be saved by works, he would be on the top list.
Boy, what a testimony. What a list. All these are on the “profit” side, things every man would run after: “circumcised on the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.” Think of every man who lives for this: rituals, race, tribe, caste, tradition, outward religion, sincerity. What will my caste people say? What will my relatives say? That is what takes people to hell.
I thought these were my great profits in life. I had earned salvation. I was boasting in this for years, living in my own dream world, thinking God must be very pleased with me. If there was one person God loved, it must be me. I was boasting in my gains. Until one day, there was a great earthquake in my heart when I met the living Christ. When I saw the bright light of Christ, my eyes were opened. What did I realize?
“But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.”
When I saw the glory of Christ, my world became upside down, my values were turned upside down. I learned new math. All these things that I thought were gains were not gains, not even neutral. They were losses. In fact, it was these things that blinded me and didn’t allow me to see the glory of Christ. None of these will ever save anyone. In fact, they would have sent me to eternal hell under deception and illusion. My eyes were opened; I saw they were all losses; they are dirty dung in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Paul was like the man who saw a hidden treasure in a field and went and, in his joy over the treasure, sold all things to buy the field. His eyes were opened to see the infinite treasure in Christ, and all that he thought valuable became useless and dung. He gladly exchanged all the garbage for the true treasure.
That was Paul’s seven “losses,” and he uses this masterstroke attack on the Judaizers. Maybe the Judaizers didn’t have any of these qualifications, but each one will be a death knell to their theology. We will see his great gain next week.
Application: Three Lessons
1. The Math of Salvation
There is a math of the devil that will send you to hell. There is a mathematics of the Spirit that will save you. Paul’s salvation experience made him learn new spiritual math. This is saving math that every saved person learns. The question you and I have to ask is: Have you come to learn inwardly the new mathematics of a saving revelation of Jesus Christ? All I have gained from birth rituals I learned, my race, my higher caste, my religion, my sincerity, and my social name. How many people are so blind? They chose to lose their soul and die in sin and don’t come to Christ and be saved because of their reputation in society. What will my caste people say? What will my relatives say? Oh, may God open your eyes and make you see all these as rubbish.
The same principle applies to riches, because riches didn’t allow the rich man to come to Christ, or his love of sin, his position, and the worldly pleasures of sin. Whatever hinders us from coming to Christ, that we trust in other than Christ, is a big loss. Until you have learned that all these things are a loss, you will keep putting your trust in them. It is these things that will drag you to eternal hell. These things have dragged millions into hell. If you don’t learn this saving math, you will go to hell, sticking to your respectable name, tradition, religion, love for sin, and outward morality.
Yes, thank God for all these privileges of growing up in a Christian family, tradition, and with good parents and upbringing. God restrains you from a sinful way, but all that cannot save you. You may have been born into a Christian family, baptized as an infant, and you may have church attendance and membership, and sincerity in serving the church, but you have to see all that as a loss. Your coming to Sunday worship cannot save you; your outward religious activities cannot save you.
Let me press this question to all your consciences: Have you personally, inwardly, and experimentally learned the saving new mathematics of a saving revelation of Christ, that compared to Jesus, all are losses? Until you come to that, those things will never allow you to come to Christ and will take you to hell. Your acceptance before God and your salvation only depends on your faith in Christ, not on anything about who you are or what you have done, but on who Christ is and what he has done. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved. Have you put your full weight of trust in Him? Otherwise, you are living a confidence-in-the-flesh religion and are still not saved.
Paul counted all gains as loss, and he gained Christ and was saved. There was another rich young ruler who came to Christ, and Christ asked him to see all things as a loss and follow Him, but he counted all his things as a gain, and he lost Christ. Christ says, “You reject me and go gain whatever you want in this life, but it will all be an eternal loss.” Matthew 16:25-26 says, “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?”
Every person in the world is in one of those two categories. When you stick to what you are and what you achieve as gains, you will eternally lose your soul and be an eternal loser. But when you realize in this life that all is lost and drop all the stuff that you’ve been counting on for your salvation and take Christ alone, you will gain everything. So which one will you be, a loser or a gainer?
2. The Dangers of Drifting
Secondly, as believers, just as the Philippian church was exposed to the dangers of confidence in the flesh, we are so often exposed to the real dangers of this subtle deception. That’s why Paul had to write this letter to this wonderful church. Do you see it in your own life?
Because we are not only saved by learning the new math, but we grow in Christ only by living according to that new math, maintaining that “no confidence in the flesh” religion, and living in an atmosphere of rejoicing only in Christ Jesus.
After having initially stood on the ground of Christ and His righteousness alone—the ground on which our spiritual life grows, prospers, and bears fruit—we must continue to stand on the same ground, having a conscience fully resting on Christ alone for our peace with God, with no confidence in the flesh. The moment you see gains because you have been a Christian for years, or “reformed” now, or you have learned some truths and are so religious on the outside, you think, “I am not so bad as I was a few years ago.” You see how nicely you are coming to church and praying today and growing in Bible knowledge. You are a church member now, a deacon, a pastor. Slowly, the serpent of confidence in the flesh grows. And if at any point you look to anything that is in you, even that which God Himself works in you by the Spirit, as the ground of your confidence for acceptance with God, you are setting yourself up for spiritual failure and dangerous instability. Christ is not only the door by which we enter into the Kingdom, but it is Christ and His righteousness alone in which we stand. And we stand continuously accepted before God.
It is only as you stand on that ground that you constantly experience the peace of God in your heart. You can worship in spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus. As long as our minds are rooted and grounded in the most essential elements of the Gospel, we will never grow weary of singing about Jesus. A hymn writer said, “On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. I dare not trust my sweetest frame.” When I feel most elevated in spirit, most detached from the world and the flesh, with my righteous feelings… I dare not put any confidence in what I’ve attained, even by grace. I dare not trust my sweetest frame, but only lean on Jesus’ name. On Christ, the solid rock, I stand; all other ground is sinking sand. The moment you stop worshipping in spirit and rejoicing in Christ Jesus is a sign that you have drifted to a confidence-in-the-flesh religion. Growth is stunted. Paul warns the Philippians about this danger.
Oh, not only to be saved but to grow in grace, we always have to keep learning this math. This mathematics of the Spirit. You cannot cling to the notion of your own goodness and be a true Christian. True Christianity requires that we see the utter worthlessness of the best of our worth or works when it comes to commending us to God so that we give up all trust in such things. I remember the three signs: no confidence in the flesh will keep you humble.
On one side, you are kept vile in your own eyes, and in a humble admiration of grace. And you ascribe all to the mercy of God and the merit of Christ, and you implore pardon for your best duties, our righteousness being but as filthy rags. Secondly, no external acts will satisfy you with self-righteousness. A heart that finds rest in empty formal services certainly places confidence in the flesh. They do not look to see whether it has affected their heart, killed their lusts, or whether they have grown in holiness or the change of their natures. Thirdly, thankfulness or gratitude sets you to work for God, rather than a legal conscience that says, “Oh, I have done and paid God’s debt.” Duties are performed as a thank-offering rather than a sin-offering, out of love to God rather than fear.
3. Proclaiming Gospel Math
Thirdly, all those who learned and lived by this spiritual math have become missionaries of this Gospel math. This is Gospel math.
Paul was delivered from false conceptions of salvation by the sudden, dramatic, and utterly convincing appearance of the Savior Himself, fit for his calling to be a champion of this doctrine in that first generation of the Gospel’s advance into the world. Who else, besides the brilliant rabbi now transformed by his encounter with Christ, could so well explain the mistakes people make about salvation and the truth that they must embrace? Who else could describe with such sympathy the attractions of systems of self-salvation and, at the same time, their fatal flaws? Experiences like that make missionaries. God raises such people in each generation by salvation experience to fight against this confidence in the flesh, just as Augustine fought against Pelagianism and Luther against Roman Catholicism.
The discovery of the true righteousness of God makes a missionary. This was Paul’s greatest discovery in life. This truth made Paul a missionary, and if we have discovered this new spiritual math—whether that discovery came to us suddenly, turning our lives upside down, or it came gradually as we started understanding—it will make all of us missionaries of the Gospel wherever God places us. See the sea of people all around us; what a mental world they are living in!
What have they not done or are not doing to find peace with God? A hundred and one things of blind superstition in every religion, torturing themselves. When God has made such a marvelous way to find peace with Him through Christ alone in the Gospel, not because of what we are or what we have done, but through Christ’s work, we can have peace that satisfies the deepest conscience, peace beyond all understanding, peace the world cannot take away. No happiness can be compared to the peace that this affords. How many millions are sitting on a dung heap and thinking they are going to heaven? Most of the people around us are spending their lives dreaming of manure! Their efforts, however earnest and abundant—spiritually speaking, dung—they dream and think it will still be enough for God and for heaven. They all need to have an encounter with the true Christ through the Gospel, an encounter with the true righteousness of God. The encounter with the genuine makes the fake altogether clear! Oh, may God make us missionaries of this Gospel of God’s grace.
Let me close with this story. In the 1730s in England, a young man named George Whitefield desperately wanted to be right before God. As a student at Oxford, he was part of the Holy Club, along with John and Charles Wesley. The members of that club rose early every day for lengthy devotions of two or three hours. They disciplined themselves so as not to waste a minute of the day. They wrote a diary every night in which they examined and condemned themselves for any fault during that day. They fasted each Wednesday and Friday and set aside Saturday as a sabbath to prepare for the Lord’s Day. They took communion each Sunday. They tried to persuade others to attend church and to refrain from evil. They visited the prisons and gave money to help the inmates and to provide for the education of their children.
Whitefield nearly ruined his health by going out in cold weather and lying prostrate before God for hours, crying out for deliverance from sin and Satan. For seven weeks he was sick in bed, confessing his sins and spending hours praying and reading his Greek New Testament.
Yet, by his own admission, he was not saved, because he was trusting in all these things to save him. Finally, “in a sense of utter desperation, in rejection of all self-trust, he cast his soul on the mercy of God through Jesus Christ, and a ray of faith, granted him from above, assured him he would not be cast out” (Arnold Dallimore, George Whitefield [Cornerstone Books], 1:77; see pp. 60-77 for full account). The burden of his sins was lifted, he was filled with joy, and he went on to become the great evangelist used by God in the First Great Awakening.
Thankfully, we do not all have to go through the agony of soul that George Whitefield went through. But we must all come to the same place he did, where we throw overboard as worthless all trust in human merit and cling to the Lord Jesus Christ as our only basis for acceptance with God. If we lose all our pride and self-trust in exchange for Christ and His merit, we gain everything!
Boy, what a testimony. What a list. All these are on the “profit” side, things every man would run after: “circumcised on the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.” Think of every man who lives for this: rituals, race, tribe, caste, tradition, outward religion, and sincerity. What will my caste people say? What will my relatives say? That is what takes people to hell.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 